The Russian energy company Inter RAO has cut off the electricity supply to Finland through its subsidiary RAO Nordic Oy at dawn this Saturday, alleging “problems receiving payments for the electricity sold”, as reported by Fingrid, the Finnish company that manages the power grid.

RAO Nordic Oy had warned on Friday that it was “forced to suspend the import of electricity from May 14”, at a time when tensions between Russia and Finland are growing following the latter’s announcement that it could request its entry into NATO after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

RAO Nordic Oy has assured that “it has been importing electricity from Russia to Finland and selling it to the Nord Pool stock market for many years”, and has indicated that the sales made since May 6 have not yet been credited with funds in its bank account. .

“We hope that the situation will improve soon and that electricity trade with Russia can be resumed,” added the subsidiary of the Russian company.

As Fingrid explained in a statement, the electricity imported from Russia accounts for around 10% of the total consumption of the Nordic country, so the supply is not threatened by this decision.

“Missing imports can be replaced on the electricity market by importing more electricity from Sweden and partly also through domestic production,” Reima Päivinen, vice president of operations at Fingrid, said in the statement.

Inter RAO is the only electricity import and export operator in Russia, and its main customer has historically been Finland.

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