Uncompromising move: Russia will stop supplying electricity to Finland – New Time

The Russian energy company Inter RAO will stop supplying electricity to Finland from Saturday. This was stated on Friday by the Finnish electricity transmission operator Fingrid. The electricity shortage will be compensated by imports of more electricity from Sweden. TASR took over the information from AFP and Reuters. “We are forced to suspend electricity imports from May 14,” said RAO Nordic, a subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned energy holding company Inter RAO. She cited the inability to pay for electricity supplied from Russia as a reason. Electricity supplies will be suspended at midnight from Friday to Saturday. Fingrid claims that there is no risk of power outages in Finland because “recently imported electricity from Russia has covered about ten percent of Finland’s total consumption.” According to the Finnish transmission system operator, the shortfall will be compensated from other sources. “The shortage of electricity imports from Russia will be offset by the import of more electricity from Sweden and the production of more electricity in Finland,” said Fingrid Reima Päivinen, vice president of energy systems operations. The news of the power outage came the day after Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and Prime Minister Sanna Marin said in a joint statement that they supported their country’s entry into NATO. On the same day, the Finnish daily Iltalehti reported that Russia could stop supplying natural gas from Friday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called it a “newspaper hoax.”