Lithuania ramps up power grid security ahead of Russia decoupling

Lithuania’s government says it will boost security on its power grids with Poland ahead of planned decoupling from Russian energy system next month.

Transcript

00:00Lithuania says it's ramping up security around its power grid ahead of a planned decoupling

00:07from Russia's electricity grid next month.

00:10Lithuania's Prime Minister Gintotas Paluckas says the government has asked police forces

00:14to take over protection of the Litpol link.

00:18Security of the power link shared with Poland was outsourced to a private security company

00:22last month.

00:23The previous government had contracted them to guard some of the Litpol's assets until

00:27springtime.

00:29But Paluckas has opted to speed up that timeline to next week, assigning the country's public

00:34security service to take over.

00:37It's a private security company that has the most experience in protecting such critical

00:44and important objects.

00:45And it's a private security company that has been protecting some objects so far.

00:51Vilnius says it's been observing attempts by its opponents to disrupt the planned decoupling

00:56from the Russian power grid.

00:58Officials provided assurances that the country has enough reserves, and all scenarios evaluated

01:03indicates that there will be no power outages.

01:07They've also issued a message to those attempting to disrupt their plans.

01:29Lithuania plans to disconnect from the Russian electricity grid on the 8th of February.

01:35They will then take over the responsibility of running their own national grids for their

01:39power needs.