Baltic states separate from Russia, combine with EU electricity network

Baltic states separate from Russia, combine with EU electricity network

Vilnius, Lithuania (Reuters) - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania announced on Sunday that they successfully synchronized their electricity systems with the European power grid. This was done a day after she was decades of Energy binding to Russia had capped and Belarus.

The complex change away from the network of its former Soviet imperial rulers, which has been planned for many years, is intended to link the three Baltic countries more closely with the European Union and strengthen the energy supply security of the region.

a milestone for the Baltic states

"We did it!", The Latvian President Edgar Rinkēvičs said in a contribution on the social network X.

After the Baltic States on Saturday, which was set up by the Soviet Union in the 1950s and was now operated by Russia, the cross-border high-voltage lines in Eastlettland, about 100 meters from the Russian border, are cut off and distributed pieces of the wire cut out as a memory of enthusiastic viewers.

a victory for freedom and unity

The EU foreign representative Kaja Kallas, even Estin, described the changeover this week as "a victory for freedom and European unity".

The Baltic Sea region is on alert due to power cables, telecommunications connections and gas lines that have been between the Baltic states and Sweden as well as Finland. All incidents were attributed to ships that pulled anchors on the sea floor after Russia marched into Ukraine. Russia has denied any participation in these incidents.

collaboration between the neighboring countries

Poland and the Baltic States used naval units, elite police officers and helicopters after an underwater current connection from Finland to Estonia was damaged in December. The Lithuanian army also started with exercises to protect the overland connection to Poland.

Analysts warn that further damage to the connections could drive electricity prices in the Baltic states at levels that have not been seen since Ukraine's invasion of Ukraine.

The last step towards independence

The IPS/UPS network was the last remaining connection to Russia for the three countries, which after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s again appeared as independent nations and contributed to the European Union in 2004.

The three loyal supporters of Kiev hired the purchases of electricity from Russia in 2022, but were dependent on the Russian network in order to control frequencies and to stabilize the networks to avoid power failures.