VILNIUS (Reuters) – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said on Sunday that they had successfully synchronized their electricity systems with the European Continental Power Grid, one day after cutting out decades of old energy ties with Russia and Wit -Russia.
Planned for many years, the complex switch from the grid of their former Soviet -and -Kesisal domination is designed to more closely integrate the three Baltic countries with the European Union and to stimulate the energy survey of the region.
“We did it!”, Said Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics in a message on social media X.
After disconnecting on Saturday from the IPS/UPS network, founded by the Soviet Union in the 1950s and now run by Russia, the Baltic countries cut cross-border high-voltage transmission lines in the east of Latvia, about 100 meters from the Russian border, over handed From pieces of chopped wire for enthusiastic bystanders such as Dendens.
EU chef of the Foreign Policy Kaja Kallas, herself an ESTSE, called the switch “A Victory for Freedom and European Unity” earlier this week.
The Baltic sea area is on a high report after power cable, telecom connections and gas pipeline pipes between the Baltic states and Sweden or Finland. It was believed that they were caused by ships dragging anchors along the seabed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia has denied any involvement.
Poland and the Baltic substances have deployed Marine assets, elite police and helicopters after an undersea power connection from Finland to Estonia was damaged in December, while the army Van Lithuania began to practice protecting the overland connection with Poland.
Analysts say that more damage to the left could shift energy prices in the Baltic States to levels that are not seen since the invasion of Ukraine when energy prices rose.
The IPS/UPS grid was the last remaining link to Russia for the three countries, which again appeared as independent countries in the fall of the Soviet Union and joined the European Union and NATO in 2004.
The three loyal supporters of Kiev stopped the purchases of power from Russia after the Moscow invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but have familiarized the Russian grid to control frequencies and stabilize networks to prevent failure.
(Reporting by Andrius Sytas and Janis Laizans in Vilnius; adaptation by Terje Solsvik and David Holmes)
