Estonia to disconnect from the Russian-run electricity network on Saturday
67 comments
·February 7, 2025IndrekR
ivan_gammel
Out of curiosity, why are you using the old name of Kaliningrad? I thought it was different only in Polish language.
urcite_ty_kokos
It's Královec in Czech.
ivan_gammel
Good to know, thanks. It’s reasonable to expect language-specific names, just strange to see it in English (even in German that is a bit weird).
croisillon
as we know: https://visitkralovec.cz/
IndrekR
Not the biggest fan of naming things after communists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Kalinin
He may be most know for being the one signing the order for Katyn massacre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
kspacewalk2
What is old may one day be new again. The two are sometimes just a referendum apart.
golergka
Kalinin was a pedophile and even worse, a communist. A lot of people who live there prefer the old name as well.
varsketiz
Lithuania - which I am from - as well. It's a long awaited step in becoming more independant from russia.
snapcaster
How is it viewed in your country? does this mean big increase in electricity prices?
hkpack
Most likely the networks were connected for stability reasons for peak consumption instead of trading.
Also if russia was selling below EU market prices, it meant that there was a corruption somewhere, as it doesn’t make any sense from business perspective to do so.
Russia uses its energy as a weapon to corrupt and finance specific politicians, every country has to keep as far away from them as possible even if they offer energy for free.
Source: we had the same in Ukraine, and every step in decoupling from russia is made with blood.
varsketiz
I don't know how it works on a detail level. Nobody is talking about price increases. I buy electricity on a nordic (https://www.enefit.lt/en/privatiems/elektra#/) market already.
It is viewed as a positive thing in general. The politicians that were against this development while it was ongoing are silent.
redwood
Exciting. For folks in the states who are so insulated from fundamental dangers, at least non-home-grown dangers, it's wonderful to see folks with the conviction and drive to do what they must do for their own destiny
belter
Not if you live in Texas...
cingraa
Cost of electricity in Russia: $0.05
Cost of electricity in Estonia: $0.26
Painful.
FTDi
It is a bit misleading, at least for Lithuania, but I believe for Estonia and Latvia too. First of all Baltic states does not import electricity from Russia/Belarus anyway, for the last 4 years, regardless we are still synchronized with them. So synchronizing would not affect energy price (to be precise it will affect, but it is fraction of euro cent so it is very minor).
Other thing is that electricity is in open market, so you can get individual fixed price per individual provider, or you can go for market price changing by hour, if there is technical capacity (smart meter installed).
cingraa
The Baltic countries do not trade electricity with Russia, hence the big cost gap.
kriz9
Most of us are happy to suffer if it means not relying on Russia. This is the price of independence.
cpursley
Doesn't it mean you're now dependent on the US (and our particular politics) as well as the middle eastern oil monarchies? Or is the idea to try to source all of the EU energy needs independently?
arlort
I think you and other in this thread are mixing up a few topics.
The grids are being disconnected from russia but that doesn't mean that estonia was dependent on Russia for electricity before that
Looking at this https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/import/est/all/... it seems like even before the 2022 war Estonian imports from russia of electricity were close to zero
The concern with having the grids connected to Russia rather than the EU is that Russia might exploit this in the future (inducing instability on the grid for instance) so switching to the EU removes that risk
As for the US and ME monarchies, this applies more in general to the EU as a whole which depends quite a lot on imports for fossil fuels, but not all dependencies are made equal and at least for now Saudis and Americans haven't been invading countries in our neighborhood so I'd still take them over the Russians
The ideal scenario would be reducing as much as possible that dependency which is why there's a bunch of interest in renewables, energy efficiency and nuclear across the continent
fifilura
There are also two cables connecting Sweden to Lithuania and Finland to Estonia.
https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/
As can be seen in the link, both Sweden and Finland currently exports power to Baltics.
Both Sweden and recently Finland are European power-houses when it comes to electricity.
Sweden always was (despite what everyone complains about here in Sweden). With a healthy mix of hydro, nuclear and recently wind power. And Finland just recently finished a large new nuclear reactor.
Also, in many places of the world (e.g. Scandinavia), electricity does not equal Oil.
Symbiote
Estonia seems to have only 5% or so of electricity from gas, and zero from oil.
Latvia has more gas use, maybe 15% over the year.
Lithuania around 10% gas.
90% independent isn't too bad.
(Data eyeballed from the annual charts on app.electricitymaps.com)
bluGill
Middle eastern monarchies are currently better than Russian "democracy". If you had asked me 30 years ago I would have said differently. If you ask again in 30 years I have no idea what I will say. The US likewise has good and bad points and exactly how they come to play changes over time. There is a lot to dislike about the EU as well which anyone living there should be concerned about more than the US (though since I live in the US I worry more about the US - I have a chance to change it maybe)
bluelu
Yes, it is exactly that.
null
cingraa
The poor people will be suffering even more. No trade in electricity, but also no trade with natural gas.
corund
you are located in Berlin and happy that estonians will pay x5 for electricity?
snapcaster
Wow that's brutal, what's the context for this change? Was Estonia "bullied" into this, is it a popular change?
5xing electricity prices causes so much human suffering hope estonians have good ways of coping
tterras
Estonian here. All baltic states started discussing it about 20 years ago. It was clear that this had to be done, as after re-independnce there has never been times where russia isn't a direct threat. In 2022 when war in Ukraine started, Baltic states also prepared for possibility that Russia will simply disconnect. Without all infrastructure done yet, it wouldwe been chaos for us for several weeks. Happy that we can finally do this move for our national security.
snapcaster
That makes a lot of sense, i would also feel very insecure knowing i was in that situation with Russia
WinstonSmith84
it's not "now", it's 2024 price. "Grid synchronization" doesn't mean, subsidized by Russia, it just meant that Russia provides energy if Estonia didn't produce enough energy, and the other way around (though it likely never happened). It's clear though that Russia was not selling at inland price.
Symbiote
According to Wikipedia, Estonia did sometimes export energy to Russia.
I don't know why this should be surprising.
sixothree
I wouldn't mind some context here. Is 0.05 the price _only_ inside of Russia.
Regardless, 0.05 seems extremely cheap to me. I can't think of any places in the states that pay that little.
And 0.26 seems pretty darn expensive. I can only think of a few places I have been that charge that much.
napoleongl
If it hadn’t been for Germany being one big area in terms of electricity pricing, all swedens four electricity areas would have been far below that. Now our two southernmost areas are infected by what I understand is southern German prices.
fmajid
I had to go to Hyderabad, India for a family emergency. Electricity here is on a progressive scale from 1 rupee/kWh up to 9 rupees. 1 rupee is about 1.25 cents. It’s got to be subsidized, just like how water is free.
snapcaster
Ah gotcha, so they're not actually paying 0.05 now and they probably won't pay 0.26 in the future?
bryanlarsen
The price of electricity in Quebec is CAD0.078 per kWh, which is 5.5 cents US.
kasey_junk
It doesn’t quote which price that is, which matters for this discussion, but I routinely pay 5c or less for energy generated in the states.
forty
From what I read, there are countries in Europe where it's ~0.40€/kWh (like Germany).
Here in France it's ~0.20€/kWh
beretguy
Less painful than dying because russia invaded your country.
flanked-evergl
Europeans voted for electricity that expensive, so not sure what the concern is. The government in Germany which shut down local production and decided to outsource it all did not come out of thin air.
null
radiospiel
> The government in Germany which shut down local production and decided to outsource it all did not come out of thin air.
That is just plain wrong. https://www.iea.org/countries/germany/energy-mix
flanked-evergl
If not Europeans, who elects the officials in EU that determine energy policy? Also, your graph shows a substantial decrease in domestic energy production.
If Germans want cheaper energy their only option is to elect other politicians. It's the same problem in Norway. People vote for politicians who do everything they can to increase the price, and then they whine that inflation is sky high. You get what you vote for in a Democracy.
toss1
Indeed, it came out of the Merkel government, which was notoriously Russia-appeasing, and while popular at the time, it's reputation is rapidly rotting under the gaze of recent history where Russia assaults Ukraine attempting to eliminate the very concept of Ukraine as an entity and independent people, and threatens all of Europe.
wewxjfq
Serious question: What brings people to write these comments? It's so tiresome. Always the same twaddle. Merkel was not notoriously Russia-appeasing, she was notoriously German industry appeasing. She didn't stop a business consortium of several large European energy companies from building a new pipeline to Russia, but neither did any leader of the other European countries involved, nor would have any other German chancellor at the time.
redwood
Exciting
throwaway191215
I feel that the EU is behind the curve. Trump just disbanded the task force that targets Russian oligarchs:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-disban...
Furthermore, there is a clear danger that Trump will make peace in Ukraine (without consulting either the EU or Ukraine) and have the EU pay for the reconstruction. And he'll possible resume friendship with Russia after the EU-Russia relationships have been ruined.
The EU should stop playing the games of the US, which change every four years. It should develop its own foreign policy and stop being taken advantage of. Rule #1: Never get involved in a war that is promoted by the US. All "friends" of the US have been screwed over in various proxy wars. Kissinger even said "to be a friend of the US is fatal".
tterras
Nothing to do with the article. This desync plan was set 20 years ago. Baltic states have never been in good relations with our occupiers.
fmajid
Oddly the Hungarians, Bulgarians and Slovaks seem to. Stockholm Syndrome?
ImHereToVote
I think Europeans are unprepared for the dangers of peace breaking out in Eastern Europe and what that entails.
flanked-evergl
Trump term 1 was significantly harder on Russia than Biden before the invasion of Ukraine. To suggest that he is pro-Russia is absurd, has always been, will always be.
That being said, the war has to end. Pretending like it could go on indefinitely, as Biden and Europe did, is infantile.
jcranmer
> Trump term 1 was significantly harder on Russia than Biden before the invasion of Ukraine. To suggest that he is pro-Russia is absurd, has always been, will always be.
How? Trump rather infamously stood up at a press conference and said, in effect, he trusted Putin more than his own intelligence agencies. The only real anti-Russia thing done during his administration that I can recall is the Magnitsky Act, but the clear impetus for that came from Congress and Trump only very reluctantly signed it.
flanked-evergl
> Trump rather infamously stood up at a press conference and said, in effect, he trusted Putin more than his own intelligence agencies.
Words are not policy.
Biden stopped selling weapons to Ukraine and removed sanctions on Nord stream 2.
AnimalMuppet
> Furthermore, there is a clear danger that Trump will make peace in Ukraine (without consulting either the EU or Ukraine) and have the EU pay for the reconstruction.
Yeah... Trump isn't dictator of the world. The only way he can make peace in Ukraine without consulting Ukraine is to persuade Russia to withdraw. (Which, if he did, that would be great... but I'm not holding my breath.) Other than that, the most he can do is stop supplying Ukraine with US weapons and intel, and let Ukraine decide what to do in the new situation.
And, having the EU pay for reconstruction? The EU is not under Trump's orders. They may chose to help pay for Ukrainian reconstruction, if they choose to do so, but it won't be because Trump "had" them do so.
jmyeet
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has clearly reshaped Europe and it's impossible to tell what the long term impacts will be. Some random thoughts:
1. It clearly strengthened NATO, with Finland and Sweden joining and member nations increasing military spending;
2. It revealed Russia's military as a paper tiger and exposed the rampant corruption;
3. It became apparent that neither Ukraine nor Russia could "win" militarily (whatever that means) after 1-2 years;
4. Barring serious escalation, it's now a war of attrition. Ukraine is running out of people to conscript. But Russia is hurting too. Bringing in North Korean troops is clearly a measure to avoid or delay another mobilization;
5. Thus far, the Russian economy has withstood sanctions probably better than anyone expected;
6. Russia has done long-term damage to their energy exports regardless of the outcome. Europe won't be keen to return to a dependence on Russian natural gas;
7. The most likely outcome for awhile seems to be that the West will eventually get bored and there'll be a negotiated settlement that'll cede Ukrainina territory to Russia, creating a land bridge to Crimea and guarantee a Russian port in the Black Sea (IMHO);
8. There clearly has been internal strife in Russia. Oligarchs are dying in car crashes an dfalling out of windows at an alarming rate. And this is beyond the one very public and short-lived coup attempt;
9. If Ukraine cedes territory to Russia, I very much suspect Zollensky will have to flee the country and it will go hard right, kinda like Hungary;
10. Less talked about is Asaad falling in Syria but it's significant as this was a port for the Russian navy in the Meditaranean. Russia had been forced to use this for repairs after Ukrainian missile and drone attacks on their Black Sea fleet. That is a serious loss;
11. Many like to paint Trump as a Putin patsy, even an asset. The truth seems to be far more complicated. For example, Trump had been banging the drum about the dangers of Nordstream 1 and 2 and European dependence on Russian natural gas back in 2017-2018. In fact, Germany conceded to pressure by the first Trump administration to build an LNG port because of this threat. Those aren't pro-Russian moves.
12. As much as Trump may want to end the conflict, there will be significant resitance to this because it's hugely profitable to the military-industrial complex. Fun fact: spending in Afghanistan in the last year was pretty much the amount spent on military aid to Ukraine in the firs tyear.
13. Ukraine is and always was too large to occupy so either that was never the goal or Putin didn't listen to his generals. I've seen estimates that you'd need a standing army of 500,000+ to occupy a country the size of Ukraine and it would be a quagmire like 1980s Afghanistan was for the Soviets;
14. So either the goal had to be gaining territory, installing a puppet regime (like Lukashenko previously) and/or it was ideological (the so-called "Duganist" argument).
15. Between China and India there will always be a market for Russian energy exports.
corund
10 - are you sure? Turkey closed Bosphorus Strait for warships in 2022, there is no way to get damaged warship from Black sea to Syria
jmyeet
This is complicated. For context, there's a 1936 international treaty that regulates traversal of the Bosporus Straits called the Montreux convention [1]. it generally allows the passage of warships with a couple of exceptions and it depends on if Turkey is at war or not.
What happened in 2022 is that Turkey decided Russia's invasion was a "war" (in the context of a treaty) and thus limited access to the Black Sea to Russian warships. But that comes with a couple of restrictions.
The most notable one is that Russia is allowed to use the passage for ships based in the Black Sea and that was important. Ukraine could (and did) attack ships in Sevastopol and when that happened, they would have to retreat to repair (if possible). And they went to Syria to do that one several occasions.
Turkey's relationship with Europe, NATO, the US and Russia is... complicated. Like Turkey is the largest military in NATO (other than the US of course) and does pretty much whatever the US tells them to, but they also buy Russian armaments (eg missile systems) and the US has stationed nuclear weapons in Turkey. And while buying Russian arms, Turkey is selling drones to Ukraine who is using them to attack Russia. And Turkey, despite being a NATO member, has been at war with Greece, another NATO member.
Russia also has used internal waterways to bypass the Bosporus Straits [2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_...
[2]: http://www.hisutton.com/Russian-Navys-Secret-Internal-Waterw...
cingraa
Did you write this just now?
null
qxtarGaK
Let's also disconnect form Saudi Arabia and Qatar and spend 5% of the EU GDP on tanks powered by solar cells and batteries (oh wait, these are manufactured in China, which is also forbidden).
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia (in that order) will disconnect from grids in Königsberg (Kaliningrad), Belarus and Russia (in this order). After that the area will be working as isolated grid for 33h, after which the grids will be connected to synchronization link between Lithuania and Poland. Königsberg will remain a grid-island. Summary of timeline on page 18 (in Estonian): https://elering.ee/sites/default/files/public/S%C3%BCnkronis...