Baltic countries including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will officially disconnect the grid with neighboring countries Russia and Belarus this weekend to connect to the power grid of the European Union allies.
AP points out that cutting power ties with Russia, symbolic and geopolitical, was accelerated after the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out.
"This is the physical connection from the remaining factor in our dependence on Russia's and Belarus energy systems," President Lithuania Gitanas Naus counterdida told AP in a recent interview.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other officials are expected to attend the ceremony on February 9, in which the 9 m high watch in the center of Viennius city will count down the last seconds of power connection between Baltic countries and Russia.
Sixteen power lines connecting the three Baltic states – all NATO members – with Russia and Belarus have been dismantled over the years. A new grid linking these countries to the EU has been built, including submarine cables under the Baltic Sea.
By February 8, all remaining transmission lines between these three countries and Russia, Belarus as well as the Russian Kaliningrad overseas territory, which borders Poland and Lithuania, will be cut off, respectively.
Within 24 hours, the Baltic Power System will be operating independently. The following day, it will be integrated into the continental European and Nordic grids via several interconnectors with Finland, Sweden and Poland.
Litgrid, Lithuania's power transmission system operator, said that the Kaliningrad region, which has no road connecting to the Russian mainland, is relying on self-produced power.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the disconnection plan had been announced in advance by the Baltic states and that the Russian energy industry had taken steps to ensure the operation went smoothly.
Three Baltic countries, which have a border of 1,633 km long with Russia and Belarus, have officially notified Moscow and Minsk about their plans to disconnect in July 2024. To synchronize power sources with the EU, Baltic countries have used 1.2 billion euros ($1.25 billion) from the EU and other sponsorships.
Baltic countries have spent decades taking steps towards energy independence. In 2003, before joining the EU, Lithuania closed the Ignaliana nuclear power plant built by the Soviet Union to address concerns in Brussels about the factory's safety. The factory stopped operating in 2009.
Lithuania also built an offshore oil port in the Baltic Sea in 1999. Seven years later, the port became Lithuania's only crude oil import point after Russia suddenly stopped supplying oil to the country through the Druzhba oil pipeline network.
