Russia has stopped supplying electricity to Finland
Sylvie Claire / May 14, 2022
Electricity exports from Russia to Finland stopped overnight on Friday after an announcement from a Russian supplier, an official of the Finnish electricity grid operator told AFP.
The company responsible for Russian electricity sales to Finland, RAO Nordic, had announced on Friday its intention to stop deliveries on Saturday, citing unpaid bills, at a time when Finland is preparing to announce its application to join NATO.
Exports from Russia to Finland are at zero at the moment, and this is the case since midnight as announced, Timo Kaukonen, an operations manager at Fingrid, the Finnish network operator, told AFP.
The network is in balance thanks to imports from Sweden, according to the real-time map of Fingrid, which had said on Friday that it could do without Russian electricity without difficulty.
Finland used to import about 10% of its total electricity consumption from its large Russian neighbor.
RAO Nordic, a Helsinki-based subsidiary of Russia's InterRAO, had justified the shutdown on Friday, saying it had not received payment for electricity supplied to Finland since May 6.
The company did not say whether these settlement problems were related to European sanctions targeting the Russian economy after the invasion of Ukraine.
This announcement comes against the backdrop of rising tensions between Moscow and Helsinki, which has announced its willingness to join NATO without delay under the influence of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
The announcement of the Finnish candidacy is expected on Sunday, at a press conference of President Sauli Niinistö and Prime Minister Sanna Marin.