Vilnius (Reuters) – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said on Sunday that they have successfully synchronized their power systems with the continental grid, a day after decades of energy links with Russia and Belarus A day.
The plan over the years, the complex transformation was far away from its grid of former Soviet empire hegemons, aiming to integrate the three Baltic countries more closely with the EU and improve energy security in the region.
“We did it!” Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said in a social media article.
Established by the Soviet Union in the 1950s after disconnecting from the IPS/UPS network on Saturday and now operated by Russia, the Baltic state cuts cross-border high-voltage transmission lines in eastern Latvia, about 100 meters from the Russian border, and handed over to the Russian border . Broken the chopped wires into enthusiastic bystanders as souvenirs.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas himself called it “a victory for freedom and European unification” earlier this week.
The Baltic region is on high alert after interruptions in power lines, telecommunications connections and natural gas pipelines between Sweden or Finland. All of this is believed to be caused by dragging anchors along the seabed after Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia denies any involvement.
Poland and Barrow’s sea states deployed naval assets, elite police forces and helicopters, which were damaged in December after Finland’s submarine power connection with Estonia, while Lithuanian troops began training to protect the land-based and Polish connect.
More damage to the links could push Baltic electricity prices to levels that have never been seen since the energy prices soared since Ukraine, analysts said.
The IPS/UPS grid is the final remaining link with the three Russian countries, reappearing as an independent state in the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and joining the EU and NATO in 2004.
After Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022, three staunch supporters in Kiev stopped buying electricity from Russia, but rely on the Russian power grid to control frequency and stabilize the network to avoid power outages.
(Reported by Andrius Sytas and Janis Laizans of Vilnius; Edited by Terje Solsvik and David Holmes)
