Baltic nations count final hours to ending electricity ties to Russia
Nearly 3 1/2 decades after leaving the Soviet Union, the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania this weekend will flip a switch to end electricity-grid connections to neighboring Russia and Belarus
VILNIUS, Lithuania — Nearly 3 1/2 decades after leaving the Soviet Union, the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania this weekend will flip a switch to end electricity-grid connections to neighboring Russia and Belarus — and turn to their European Union allies.
The severing of electricity ties to oil- and gas-rich Russia is steeped in geopolitical and symbolic significance. Work toward it sped up after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine three years ago, battering Moscow’s EU relations.
“This is physical disconnection from the last remaining element of our reliance on the Russian and Belarusian energy system,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda told The Associated Press in a recent interview.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and other dignitaries are expected at a ceremony on Sunday as a specially-made 9-meter (29.5-foot) tall clock in downtown Vilnius counts down the final seconds of the Baltic states’ electricity ties to Russia.
The Baltic countries, which are all NATO members, have often had chilly ties with Russia since declaring independence from the USSR in 1990 — and relations soured further over Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Sixteen power lines that used to connect the three Baltic states with Russia and Belarus were dismantled over the years as a new grid linking them with the rest of the EU was created, including underwater cables in the Baltic Sea.
On Saturday, all remaining transmission lines between them and Russia, Belarus and Russia’s
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