Baltic States making historic switch away from Russian power happymamay

More than three decades after leaving the Soviet Union, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is preparing to separate the electrical network in Russia and join the European Union network.

The two -day process will start on Saturday, when the residents were asked to ship their devices, store food and water, and prepare as if it was expected that the harsh weather will be.

Many of the elevators were said – while traffic lights will be turned off in some areas.

The giant giant, in particular, will count the countdown to the last seconds before moving at a historic ceremony in the capital of Lithuania on Sunday, attended by European Union President Ursula von der Lin.

The three countries will officially move away from the so -called Brail Power network, which was linked by Russia and Belarus since the end of World War II.

The BRELL – which means Russia in Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – is almost completely by Russia, and has long been considered as a weakness of the former Soviet republics, which are now members of NATO.

After separating from this, the three countries will work in the “isolated situation” for about 24 hours – only alive on their strength – before integrating into the European network across Poland.

On Saturday morning, Lithuania said it had separated from the Russian network, where it is expected to be affiliated with Latvia and Estonia soon.

“We are now removing Russia’s ability to use the electricity system as a tool for geopolitical extortion,” Lithuania Minister of Energy Zigmanas Weissionas told AFP.

“It is the culmination of efforts for more than 10 years or 20 years, to reduce energy accreditation,” Professor David Smith of the Baltic University Research Unit at Glasgow University told the BBC.

“When the Baltic countries joined the European Union and NATO, everyone talked about being an energy island that still depends on the joint electricity network with Belarus and Russia.” “It has been completely broken now.”

Tensions between the Baltic and Russia countries, whose borders share a scale of 543 miles (874 km), have increased since Russia has invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Since then, a series of suspected sabotage incidents that include electricity cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea have pushed fears that Moscow could decrease the shift towards the Energy of the European Union.

In the past 18 months, at least 11 rania cables under the Baltic Sea have been exposed. In a modern case, A ship of the “Shadow Fleet” in Russia was accused of oil tankers of destroying the main energy link in Estonia In the Gulf of Finland. The Kremlin refused to comment.

NATO did not accuse Russia, but he responded by launching a new periodic mission in the Baltic Sentry region.

“We cannot exclude a kind of provocation. For this reason, the Latvian and foreign security authorities are at maximum alert,” said Latvian President Edgarez Renkviz on Wednesday.

“It is clear that there are risks, we understand it well,” the Latvian Prime Minister Evica Celina repeated. “But the risks are determined and there is an emergency plan.”

In recent months, repeated emergency tests have been performed to help prepare for potential targeted attacks on the power system.

“Russia may try to use this period to create uncertainty”, but he said that because of international cooperation, Estonia was “well ready even for the worse- status scenarios.”

He added that electronic attacks against the country have risen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and ranged between “DDOS attacks that depend on penetration [Distributed Denial-Of-Service] To the most advanced processes targeted against government agencies and companies. ”

The Baltic countries will also monitor the wrong information campaigns related to the transition.

Soon after notifying Russia of their decision to withdraw from Bell in August 2024, social media misinformation appeared, warning against the failure of the supply and high prices if the countries will leave the joint energy network.