Baltic countries are disconnecting from Russia, but does that mark the end of Moscow’s meddling?

7 February 2025, 10:47 | Updated: 14 February 2025, 17:58

The Baltic states are about to make a historic shift in their energy landscape.

This weekend, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia will disconnect themselves from the Russian electricity transmission grid and connect to the synchronous grid of Continental Europe.

This is a move that has been decades in the making. The Baltic countries, looking to remove some of the remaining legacies of Soviet occupation, expressed interest in joining the continental grid in 2007. LitPol, an electricity link between Poland and Lithuania, became operational in 2015 – the first direct link between the Baltic transmission system and the Continental Europe Network.

Then, in 2018, the leaders of the Baltic countries signed a deal indicating they would synchronise their electricity systems with the Continental Europe Network by the end of this year, 2025. However, as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and concern in Baltic states around energy dependence on Russia, plans for synchronisation were brought forward to this Sunday – February 9th.

That signals a significant step towards energy independence from Russia for the Baltic states, which have faced years of coercive actions from Moscow, including blockades and pipeline shutdowns. It comes as part of a broader strategy within the European Union to reduce its reliance on Russian energy.

But growing ‘grey-zone’ activity in the Baltic Sea is a reminder that energy security goes beyond simply which country is doing the supplying.

The last few months have seen a spate of suspicious cable damage incidents in the Baltic Sea by ships with links to Russia, raising concerns about sabotage of critical infrastructure.

Such tactics have been going on for some time, but allies in the Baltics have recently started taking much firmer action to prevent this kind of aggression. Efforts of allies in the Baltic region through the NATO operation ‘Baltic Sentry’ include strengthened presence operations to bolster maritime domain awareness and deter further suspicious activity.

Given the reduced size of the Royal Navy in recent years, this should send a powerful message to HM Treasury about the vital economic logic of investing more in Britain’s maritime capabilities.

These incidents are a stark reminder that without the necessary hard power to protect critical maritime infrastructure, particularly apt for an island nation such as Britain, changing suppliers is only one element of achieving energy security.

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Dr Mann Virdee is Senior Research Fellow (Science, Technology, and Economics) at the Council on Geostrategy, and William Freer is Research Fellow (National Security) at the Council on Geostrategy.

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