Energy Security in Eastern Europe since Decoupling from Russia: The Fragile Balance Between Geopolitics, National Politics and Vernacular Perceptions

Russia’s war against Ukraine exposed the vulnerabilities that come with energy dependence on Russia. For states across Europe, the need to decouple from the Russian energy system was clear. This decoupling process has been especially challenging for Eastern European countries so embedded in Russia’s energy infrastructure. This KonKoop In:Security Report looks at how three Eastern European countries have gone about severing their energy ties to Russia. Moving eastwards from the protection of the European energy umbrella in Latvia to peripheral Moldova and wartime Ukraine, we can see how energy security becomes more precarious. In all three countries energy geopolitics is intertwined with the perceptions and fears of ordinary consumers.

These are the main findings:

• Latvia: In response to the escalation of tensions with Russia, the Latvian government banned natural gas imports from Russia and decided to disconnect from the BRELL ring, a post-Soviet electricity transmission grid, earlier than planned. Since then pro-Russian actors have been conducting a disinformation campaign aimed at stoking people’s fears that decoupling will be disastrous for the Latvian economy and lead to energy shortages. The government has met these claims head-on, reassuring citizens that even if Russia were to unilaterally disconnect the Baltic states from Brell, a stable energy supply would still be guaranteed. Investments in social support schemes to help people cope with rising heating and electricity costs have also made them less susceptible to disinformation.
• Moldova: Russia used to supply gas to Moldova at preferential prices in exchange for political concessions. This changed after February 2022, when the pro-Western government in Chisinau moved quickly to reduce Moldova’s dependency on Russian energy. Together with Ukraine, Moldova disconnected from the Brell grid just hours before the full-scale invasion. It has since been able to secure gas deliveries from Romania at subsidised prices and connected to the European continental network. Attempts by Russia to play the energy card to destabilise the government in Chisinau and heighten tensions with the breakaway pro-Russian region of Transdniestria have therefore been in vain. With alternative routes and supplies of energy, Moldova ‘can escape the Kremlin’s grip’.
• Ukraine: Ukraine’s energy security situation is by far the most dire. Prolonged power cuts and rolling blackouts have become part of everyday life in wartime. Through this experience, the value people place in being supplied with electricity has risen dramatically. This explains why Ukrainian society has been generally accepting of necessary hikes in energy prices. In what the report calls ‘infrastructural citizenship’, they see themselves as part of the energy system and view their efforts to save energy and pay utility bills as part of the war effort. EU and NATO states can also draw lessons from the Ukrainian case for how to prepare for power supply shortages and blackouts in peacetime and in the context of potential hostile attacks.

This second KonKoop In:Security Report is based on the 2024 workshop The Risks of Decoupling: Post-Soviet Critical Infrastructure Legacies, New Challenges and the Societal Dimension organised by the research network Cooperation and Conflict in Eastern Europe (KonKoop), which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). KonKoop examines various conflict constellations and dynamics of cooperation in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus. It comprises six academic institutions from across Germany and is associated with many international partners. The Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS) is the project’s lead partner. At ZOiS, Nadja Douglas coordinates KonKoop’s In:Security topic line, which takes a bottom-up approach to security and insecurity. The results will be published periodically in the KonKoop In:Security Reports.

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