CNN
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“Where are you preparing for a blackout?” I’m reading a Facebook post from the Estonian Rescue Committee, the country’s civil defense agency. The photo shows a young woman holding a power bank on a table packed with water bottles, flashlights and other emergency supplies.
Estonia, along with fellow Baltic states, is counting down the day that will eventually remove one of its electrical grids controlled by Russia, one of the last traces of the 50 years of Soviet occupation.
Preparing the population for what is considered an unlikely scenario of a blackout is the final stage of a long-standing project. “Everything should flow smoothly,” the rescue committee post states, “But there can be unexpected circumstances. It can be that hostile neighbors’ actions towards the east, unexpected weather conditions, and technical. Is it because of a mistake?”
VootelePäi, an advisor to Estonian Home Affairs Ministry, told CNN “It’s actually quite low,” but still sets regulations for all possibilities.
Baltics has been preparing for this moment for nearly 20 years since joining the EU and NATO in 2004. They renovated their existing infrastructure and built new power lines and important Overland links, including some subsea cables to Finland and Sweden, grids in mainland Europe, with a light pole line connecting Lithuania and Poland.
In other words, just a few months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, all three countries were able to halt electricity purchases from Moscow.
However, Russia still had full control over the functions of the grid, balancing supply and demand and maintaining frequency, said Susanne Nies, project lead at German energy research institute Helmholtz-Zentrum. . And another holdover in the Soviet era offered these services free of charge.
“The big risk was that Balticus in the context of the Ukrainian War would find Russia in a situation where he would say, “Stop it” from one second to another. We won’t help you anymore,” Nees told CNN.
Six months ago, the Baltic states officially informed Russia of their intention to “desynchronize”, and on February 7, the so-called Brel (Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) contract that controls the shared grid expired. It will become.
On February 8th, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were simultaneously detached from their grid, at which point they would have to temporarily function as “islands” and survive only with the electricity they produce. On February 9, they plan to synchronize a new independent grid with a continental European simultaneous area covering most of the European Union.
It’s a very iconic moment. Outside the Energy Technology Museum in the heart of Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, the countdown clock, has etched the past 100 days into “energy independence.” “This is the last break from Soviet occupation,” said Jason Moyer, a foreign policy analyst at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank. “Psychologically, this is a huge step forward.”
The project includes significant investments, most of which come from the European Union and provides grants of over $1.2 billion. But for Baltics, it was too expensive to allow Moscow to keep its power grids exploited. “We understand that cheap Russian energy is always priced at a price that a democratic European country shouldn’t be able to afford,” Pay said.
And to ensure that their resolve is not questioned last year, Lithuanian grid operator Litgrid began cutting old Soviet cables that form connections with Belarus so that the lines could be reused.
The company sent CNN parts to Ukraine from one dismantled power line to help rebuild the damaged energy infrastructure. A symbol of geopolitical risks that underpin the entire project.
“There is no scenario connected to the Russian power grid,” Litgrid CEO Rokas Masiulis told CNN via email.
A question that bothers Baltic leaders as some of the most vocal opponents of the war in Ukraine and as part of the most generous donors to the Ukrainian army (as a percentage of GDP) is that Russia has been mutilated. Whether they attempt to exploit the moment, through physical sabotage or other hybrid tactics such as cyberattacks or disinformation.
Ukraine was in fact cut off from the Russian grid for testing hours before Russia began its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. It never reconnected.
Russia is willing to weaponize its electricity supply, not only through repeated attacks on Ukrainian energy grids, but also through almost three years of occupation of the Zaporisia nuclear power plant, which provided the fifth Ukrainian electricity before the war. That’s what it is.
For Russia, the loss of leverage over the Baltics, a geopolitical defeat for former Soviet vassals, Moyer said. work. “The Kremlin declined to comment after saying that Russia had only taken all the necessary steps to ensure “uninterrupted and reliable operation of a unified energy system.”
Baltic officials have no chance. Security is being stepped up in energy facilities throughout the region. “Formally, Russia has adopted this gently,” Lithuanian Defense Minister Devil Shakarien told CNN in an interview with Vilnius. “But… our previous experience shows that what they say and what they’re doing doesn’t necessarily match.”
“We’re increasing our surveillance efforts and expanding additional security measures. …We’re going to see this with Hawk’s eyes,” Shakarien said.
Pay, an advisor to Estonia’s Ministry of Home Affairs, said that Tallinn’s government compared the size of security businesses hosting Ukraine’s Voldymir Zelensky in January last year to protect critical infrastructure. He says he’s drafting additional police officers and volunteer security guards, similar to the volunteer guards. . “But it only happened in Tallinn,” he told CNN. “The energy grid is all over Estonia.”
NATO has now set up a new mission to protect submarine cables in the Baltic Sea. The latest updates on a series of confusing incidents have been damaged after Estlink 2, an important part of Baltics’ post-Soviet power infrastructure, was damaged on Christmas Day. On a complex web of cables across the Baltic floor.
Grid operators in Finland and Baltic countries ensured that supply was secured for their customers in the next few days. However, according to Finnish authorities, electricity prices will be recorded in late December and repairs will take until August.
Finland is still investigating the incident, but police are suspected of custodying a vessel carrying Russian petroleum products and dragging the anchor into the cable. Last week, the lawyer representing the ship’s owner was called “nonsense” allegations of sabotage.
“Our critical energy infrastructure is currently in a very sensitive place,” Shakarien told CNN. “And to imagine this, this series of incidents happened just before they were detached from the Russian network. Again, is it another coincidence?”
One area where neither NATO nor Baltics police is in Kaliningrad. The small Russian, trapped between Lithuania and Poland, must act as an electric “island”, and Russia has conducted multiple successful tests of its ability to deal with it, but experts create tension It has not ruled out intentional actions by Moscow.
“Russia has caused a false blackout in the region and might say, ‘Hey, Kaliningrad, this is even the result of the Baltic Sea’s sync,” Nese said. She believes that Russia blamed Balticus for plunging Kaliningrad’s million residents into the darkness, and made precise concessions to it, assessing NATO’s appetite and helped the Eastern side.
NATO did not answer CNN’s questions about Kaliningrad. Officials say the Baltic decision to desynchronize from the Russian grid is a “welcome step” to “enhancing energy independence.”
The risks could now be high as new Washington administrations are critical of NATO and are determined to end the war in Ukraine. “I want to see if (Russian) NATO is alive, where do I test it outside of Baltics?” Neese said.
