In the early morning hours of February 8, 2025, a 9-meter tall clock in downtown Vilnius reached zero, marking one of the most significant geopolitical transformations in European energy history. As the final seconds ticked away, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania severed their last physical connection to the Soviet-era power infrastructure that had bound them to Moscow for more than six decades.1
This wasn’t merely a technical operation for it was the culmination of nearly two decades of strategic planning, billions of euros in investment, and a determined effort to achieve complete energy sovereignty from Russia.
The synchronization with Continental Europe’s power grid represented far more than an engineering achievement. It symbolized the Baltic states’ final rejection of post-Soviet dependency and their full integration into European systems.
As Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda declared, this was “physical disconnection from the last remaining element of our reliance on the Russian and Belarusian energy system.”2
The move effectively weaponized energy infrastructure in reverse by transforming what had been a Russian lever of control into a demonstration of European unity and resilience.
The Historical Context: Decades of Dependency
The electricity systems of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were technologically integrated into the Integrated Power System/Unified Power System (IPS/UPS) grid in the early 1960s, during the Soviet occupation. This integration was not a choice but an imposition and was part of the broader Soviet strategy of creating interdependencies that would outlast the political union itself.
After achieving independence in 1990, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania continued to operate their electricity systems within the post-Soviet BRELL network which is named after its five members: Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The 2001 BRELL Agreement formalized coordinated management of grid synchronization between these countries, but in reality, the system was still centrally controlled by Russian operators through the IPS/UPS network, with Moscow responsible for balancing supply and maintaining frequency stability.
This technical arrangement meant that, despite political sovereignty, critical infrastructure in the Baltic states, including factories, hospitals, and households, remained structurally dependent on Russia for the reliability and security of their electricity supply until the recent synchronization with the European grid.3
The vulnerability this created was not theoretical. Lithuania experienced firsthand how Russia wielded energy as a weapon when, after declining to sell its crude oil refinery to a Russian company in 2006, it faced politically motivated gas pricing and oil pipeline shutdowns. Such an incident crystallized the understanding that true sovereignty required control over energy infrastructure.4
The Long Road to Independence
The journey toward energy independence began formally in 2007, when the prime ministers of the three Baltic states confirmed their strategic objective to become part of the continental European network. This was no simple undertaking. It required rebuilding power lines, constructing new inter-connectors, and fundamentally reorienting three national electricity systems away from the east and toward the west.
The European Union recognized the critical strategic significance of the Baltic electricity grid synchronization, ultimately allocating over €1.2 billion in funding since 2014 through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) to support necessary infrastructure upgrades and integration with the Continental European Network.5
Key milestones included the 2015 commissioning of LitPol Link, the first direct high-voltage connection between Poland and Lithuania, which provided a vital gateway for integrating the Baltic states with the European grid.
The next major step was the development of the Harmony Link, a new planned inter-connector between Poland and Lithuania originally valued at approximately €680 million, of which €493 million was to be covered by EU funding through the CEF. The Harmony Link is designed to reinforce regional energy security and further synchronize the Baltic grid with the rest of Europe.6
The effort demanded more than building new infrastructure. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania also needed to demonstrate that their grids could operate autonomously. On April 22, 2023, the three Baltic states conducted a full-day isolation test—disconnecting from the Russia- and Belarus-linked IPS/UPS power grid—to assess their ability to sustain independent electricity operations.7
Latvia and Estonia withdrew from this initial testing phase, citing infrastructure readiness concerns, but Lithuania successfully completed the test and declared itself ready to join the synchronous grid of Continental Europe by 2024. President Nausėda pressed for all three countries to move together, and eventually they agreed to synchronize no later than February 2025.
The Catalyst: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
The Baltic synchronization project, while under development for nearly twenty years, saw its timeline significantly accelerated following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The war exposed with unprecedented clarity the severe risks inherent in energy dependence on an aggressive neighboring state, catalyzing swift action among Baltic leaders to protect their energy security.8
In response to this new urgency, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė and her Baltic counterparts pushed to expedite the transition away from the Russian-controlled IPS/UPS (BRELL) transmission system, advancing the synchronization deadline from the original target of late 2025 to February 2025. The acceleration reflects a determined effort by Lithuania and its neighbors to minimize vulnerability and fully align with the Continental European grid well ahead of schedule.9
The war also provided a powerful precedent. Ukraine managed to disconnect its power grid from Russia and synchronize with Europe’s ENTSO-E network just hours before the full-scale invasion began on February 24, 2022.10
What was initially intended as a temporary test became permanent, and proved its strategic value when Russia destroyed approximately half of Ukraine’s power generation capacity in subsequent attacks.
Ukraine’s connection to the European grid enabled it to import power and maintain electricity supplies through devastating bombardments which was a lifeline that would have been impossible had it remained dependent on Russian-controlled systems.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Baltic states halted all purchases of Russian electricity in May 2022, yet their power grids remained physically linked to those of Russia and Belarus as part of the legacy BRELL system. This arrangement revealed a crucial distinction: while commercial imports could be rapidly halted, disentangling from the structural dependencies of interconnected electricity networks proved much more complex and protracted.11
February 2025: The Historic Disconnection
On July 16, 2024, the Baltic states acting through their respective transmission system operators (Elering, AST, and Litgrid), formally notified Russia and Belarus of their intent to terminate participation in the BRELL energy agreement. The BRELL Agreement, enabling synchronous operation with the IPS/UPS power grid managed by Russia, was slated to end legally on February 7, 2025, with the physical disconnection scheduled for the following day.
On February 8, 2025, at precisely 9:09 AM (UTC+2), Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania executed a coordinated withdrawal from the IPS/UPS system. The technical procedure involved each Baltic country sequentially disconnecting remaining transmission links with Russia, Belarus, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad: Lithuania disconnected first, followed shortly by Latvia, and then Estonia, completing the process
For 24 hours following their disconnection from the Russian-controlled electricity grid on February 8, 2025, the Baltic power systems of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania operated autonomously in “island operation mode.” During this period, operators carried out numerous frequency, voltage stability, and system resilience tests while fully isolated from both the Russian and European grids which was a stage widely viewed as the most anxious part of the transition.
Notably, in Lithuania, the Elektrėnai Power Plant experienced an unplanned temporary disconnection but was quickly brought back online, serving as a minor incident that highlighted both the risks faced and the built-in redundancies of the system. This successful management of the grid’s stability and prompt corrective actions underscored the readiness of the Baltic operators for full synchronization with Europe’s power network.
Then, on February 9, 2025, at 14:05, the moment arrived: the Baltic states successfully synchronized with the continental European electricity grid.21 The transition occurred without major incident.
Three small nations with a total population of around six million—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania achieved what European Commission officials called a major technological milestone in early 2025: they synchronized their national power grids with the Continental Europe Synchronous Area, a system supplying electricity to over 400 million consumers in more than 30 countries across the European continent.12
This integration marked the completion of a years-long effort to merge the Baltic states’ electricity networks with the broader European power system, ending their reliance on the former Soviet IPS/UPS network
The Kaliningrad “Island”
The synchronization created a unique and strategically significant problem for Russia: the complete energy isolation of Kaliningrad Oblast. This Russian exclave, wedged between EU members Poland and Lithuania and the Baltic Sea, suddenly found itself operating as an “energy island”or a grid without external connections to other power systems.13
Energy islands are rare in Europe and significantly more challenging to operate because they cannot rely on cross-border flows to balance fluctuations in electricity demand and supply.14 Moscow had anticipated this problem and spent heavily to prepare. Russia doubled Kaliningrad’s gas-fired power capacity, constructed an approximately €780 million gas storage facility with a capacity of roughly 800 million cubic meters, and acquired the Marshal Vasilevsky tanker, a $300 million LNG terminal ship capable of supplying Kaliningrad’s full gas demand of up to 3.7 billion cubic meters per year.
However, as analyst Tomas Janeliūnas pointed out, the LNG option is approximately four and a half times more expensive than piped gas. More critically, Kaliningrad remains heavily dependent on gas supplies that transit through Lithuania via pipeline.
As Janeliūnas noted with understated irony: “If something happened to that pipeline in Lithuania… say, an accidental ‘anchor drop’ or a truck crash… Kaliningrad’s gas supply would be, let’s say – challenged.” The synchronization didn’t just cut off Russia’s grid for it placed Kaliningrad in a vulnerable position where Lithuania holds a crucial piece of the puzzle.15
Kaliningrad’s vulnerability carries major strategic implications due to its role as a core military outpost for Russia. The exclave is home to advanced military systems, notably including Iskander-M short-range ballistic missiles that are capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear warheads, with a range that can reach several NATO countries from this location. Kaliningrad also hosts the principal base of the Russian Baltic Fleet, making it a hub for Moscow’s naval and missile forces in the Baltic Sea region.16
This makes the region’s energy isolation particularly consequential. The current dependence on costly alternatives, like liquefied natural gas, underscores how the post-Soviet power dynamic has fundamentally shifted: a once forward-deployed Russian stronghold now finds itself encircled and increasingly vulnerable to Western leverage and blockade in both military and economic terms.
The Renewable Energy Dimension
The synchronization of the Baltic States’ electricity grids with continental Europe has both coincided with and actively driven a major acceleration in renewable energy development throughout the region. Lithuania, for instance, surpassed its 2025 solar target ahead of schedule by reaching 1.2 GW of installed solar photovoltaic capacity as early as 2024.
The country has now set a new goal to achieve 5.1 GW of solar capacity by 2030, signaling a strong policy commitment to further expansion. Across the Baltic, both solar and wind power investment are treated as strategic priorities, with substantial growth anticipated as synchronization improves regional energy integration.17
Poland is emerging as a linchpin in this transformation. It is currently developing 33 GW of offshore wind capacity in the Baltic Sea, a buildout that could represent nearly a quarter of the European Union’s forecasted offshore wind capacity by 2050. This massive influx of renewable generation, coupled with expanded and modernized interconnections between Poland and the Baltic states, is expected to form the backbone of future energy security—anchored in clean, domestic sources instead of imported fossil fuels.18
As the EU’s internal electricity market integrates further, strengthened cross-border flows will be increasingly crucial for managing the variable generation patterns of wind and solar. Harmonized grid standards across member states are making it easier to connect new renewable projects and to distribute surplus power throughout Europe.
Commenting on the region’s transformation, Litgrid CEO Rokas Masiulis observed: “Actions by Russia—by them being aggressive and pushing their neighbors has really helped us. Maybe we’ve suffered a little with oil prices, with gas prices, but we were forced to act. So we built alternative routes. Now we’re in much better state than we were before”.19
Security Concerns and Cyber Threats
The synchronization of the Baltic states’ power grids with continental Europe was accompanied by pronounced security concerns, particularly regarding potential Russian cyberattacks and acts of sabotage. In advance of the transition, the Baltic countries implemented elevated cybersecurity protocols, including restricting VPN access for external contractors and installing anti-drone defenses at key energy infrastructure sites. Latvia’s President Edgars Rinkēvičs publicly warned of possible provocations, underscoring the necessity of these security measures to protect critical assets and personnel throughout the synchronization process.20
To date, the Baltic states have reported no major cyberattacks on their energy infrastructure during or after the synchronization. However, they remain on high alert. Russian cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure are expected to continue, likely resulting in increased cybersecurity spending and elevating strategic and operational risk for the Baltic states over the long term.
The establishment of Baltic Sentry at the Baltic Sea NATO Allies Summit in Helsinki in January 2025 represented an important step in protecting the region’s critical infrastructure. This initiative reflects growing recognition that energy infrastructure protection requires coordinated NATO-EU cooperation, combining cyber defense capabilities with physical infrastructure security.
The concerns are not unfounded. In the years following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, multiple incidents of suspected sabotage affected undersea cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea region. The synchronization has made the Baltic states’ infrastructure a more attractive target for Russian hybrid operations, even as it has reduced their vulnerability to traditional energy coercion.21
Looking Ahead
The successful synchronization does not mean the work is complete. Several challenges and opportunities lie ahead for the Baltic energy system.
First, the Baltic states must continue developing their energy infrastructure in partnership with EU neighbors and institutions. Further expansion of transmission lines and investment in new interconnectors will increase system resilience to possible outages and overloads.
The Harmony Link project is a major new electricity interconnector planned between Poland and Lithuania, with construction scheduled for completion by 2030 and an estimated investment of around €680 million, a substantial portion of which comes from EU funding. Timely completion of Harmony Link is essential, as the project will significantly enhance the region’s energy security by further integrating the Baltic grids with continental Europe’s network and increasing power trading capacity between Lithuania and Poland.
To maximize the benefits and resilience provided by this new connection, additional measures, including the deployment of battery energy storage systems and advanced demand response capabilities, will be necessary. These flexible resources allow the grid to balance supply and demand more effectively and help safeguard against fluctuations in renewable generation and grid stress, supporting system stability and meeting future peak demand.22
Second, the Baltic states will need reliable access to power reserves in emergency situations through solidarity mechanisms and cooperation with Poland, Sweden, and Finland. This requires greater regional energy cooperation, particularly through common power system management strategies with the Nordic countries and strengthening energy exchange mechanisms in the European market.
Third, continued vigilance regarding cybersecurity and physical infrastructure protection is essential. The EU and member states must consistently strengthen their cyber-security systems to protect against attacks that could destabilize the electricity system. Further developing EU-NATO cooperation on critical infrastructure protection will remain central to this effort.
Finally, while Russia assures that Kaliningrad can operate reliably in isolation, there remains a realistic expectation that Moscow could make energy supply problems to Kaliningrad a pretext for some form of aggression in the region.
Restrictions by Finland and Estonia on Russian maritime traffic may compound Kaliningrad’s vulnerabilities, potentially creating shortages of food and fuel that could be politically exploited. The increased NATO military presence across the Suwalki corridor the only land route linking the Baltics to NATO reflects awareness of these risks.
In short, the Baltic states’ disconnection from Russia’s power grid and synchronization with Continental Europe represents far more than a technical achievement in electrical engineering. It marks the completion of a three-decade journey from Soviet occupation to full integration with European systems. The project embodies the principle that true sovereignty requires control over fundamental infrastructure, and that energy dependence is political dependence.
For Russia, the synchronization represents a strategic setback. The Kaliningrad exclave, once a menacing outpost projecting Russian power into the heart of Europe, now finds itself as an energy island dependent on the goodwill of the very EU members it was positioned to threaten. The reversal is complete: what was once a Russian lever of control has become a vulnerability.
On February 9, 2025, when the Baltic Power System successfully merged with the Continental European grid, more than electricity began flowing westward. Three nations that had spent the previous 80 years under occupation, coercion, or the threat of both finally achieved complete energy sovereignty.
3. https://www.enseccoe.org/publications/brell-desynchronisation-assessment/
6. https://www.pagerpower.com/news/harmony-link-project-baltic-states-series/; https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2159251/polish-lithuanian-power-cable-to-be-built-alongside-rail-baltica-tracks-minister
9. https://www.fpri.org/article/2024/09/the-baltic-electricity-grid-synchronizing-symphony/
11. https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/07/europe/baltic-states-disconnection-russian-energy-grid-intl-cmd
16. https://kyivindependent.com/russia-saber-rattles-with-iskander-missiles-in-kaliningrad-oblast-during-zapad-drills-should-nato-be-concerned/; https://www.cna.org/our-media/indepth/2023/05/kaliningrad-impregnable-fortress-or-russian-alamo
17. https://www.pvknowhow.com/news/lithuania-solar-power-program-launches-15-million/
18. https://strategicenergy.eu/poland-baltic-europe-offshore-wind-powerhouse/
20. https://eng.lsm.lv/article/politics/president/05.02.2025-president-baltic-states-ready-to-unplug-from-brell-grid.a586568/; https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/natos-eastern-flank-bunkers-anti-drone-nets-set-protect-power-grids-2025-09-29/
21. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/recent-suspected-underwater-sabotage-incidents-baltic-sea-2024-12-03/; https://jamestown.org/program/russias-hybrid-warfare-tactics-target-the-baltics/