The Baltic States have joined the European electricity grid system

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have successfully synchronized their power systems with Europe after disconnecting from the Russian-Belarusian BRELL power grid, Reuters reported on February 9.

"We did it! Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are now part of the European power grid system," Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics wrote on social network X (formerly Twitter).

The Baltic states cut cross-border high-voltage power lines in eastern Latvia on Saturday, about 100 meters from the Russian border, the agency wrote.

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The day before, Russia's post mission to the EU said that the Baltic states' withdrawal from BRELL was political in nature. It specified that European households and enterprises in the Baltic states would bear the costs first of all.

At the same time, the Russian Energy Ministry reported that the Kaliningrad region had switched to an autonomous mode of operation due to the withdrawal of the Baltic states from the single energy ring with the Russian Federation and Belarus.

Later the same day, the system operator of the Unified Energy System (SO UES) reported that the withdrawal of the Baltic States from the BRELL did not affect the parallel operation of the energy systems of Russia and Belarus and the functioning of the energy system in the Kaliningrad region.

The BRELL electric ring is an interconnection of the energy systems of Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In November 2024, the operators of the power systems of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia officially notified Russia and Belarus about withdrawal from the common BRELL power system by February 8, 2025.