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Drones incursions alarm NATO and EU member states

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Four countries accelerate moves to protect power grids

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Security to include concrete bunkers, anti-drone nets

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One focus area is parts of Lithuania near Belarus border

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Another focus is the so-called Suwalki Gap

By Andrius Sytas and Marek Strzelecki

NERIS SUBSTATION, Lithuania, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Four

NATO and European Union countries bordering Russia plan to build

concrete bunkers and anti-drone nets at vital energy facilities

under a plan to protect their power grids following Russian

drone incursions.

Violations of Polish airspace by Russian drones this month

and multiple drone sightings, including one that forced the

closure of Copenhagen Airport for several hours, have raised

concerns about NATO's defences on its eastern flank.

The airspace violations have also increased concerns about

the vulnerability of energy facilities in the area, and Poland,

Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia have drawn up a plan to protect

their power grids which they now treat as a matter of urgency.

ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE IS 'PARTICULARLY EXPOSED'

In interviews with Reuters, the Polish and Lithuanian grid

operators provided previously undisclosed details of the plan,

including building bunkers to house substations or key parts of

substations, using anti-drone nets to cover critical

infrastructure and stocking up on hard-to-replace components.

"After the incidents in Copenhagen and elsewhere,

there's growing awareness that energy infrastructure is

particularly exposed", Grzegorz Onichimowski, CEO of the Polish

power grid operator PSE, told Reuters.

"It (the Russian drone violations) is not something that

could potentially happen, but something that's already

happening".

Days after Russian drones were shot down in Polish

airspace by NATO jets on September 9-10, Poland and the three

Baltic states submitted the 382-million-euro ($447-million) grid

security plan to the EU and asked it to finance half the amount.

The plan had been in the works since March but became more

urgent after the airspace violations, Lithuanian and Polish

officials said.

"We hope that the European Union, which invested a lot of

money, 1.2 billion euros, into preparing our grids to cut ties

with Russia, will now properly secure its own investment",

Lithuania's Energy Minister Zygimantas Vaiciunas told Reuters.

The three Baltic states completed a switch from Russia's

electricity grid to the EU's system in February, severing

Soviet-era ties after suspected sabotage of several subsea

cables and pipelines.

LESSONS DRAWN FROM RUSSIA'S WAR IN UKRAINE

The grid security plan - on which the Estonian and Latvian

grid operators declined comment - draws lessons from Ukraine,

whose power grid has been under sustained bombardment since

Russia's 2022 invasion.

Much of the focus will be on the so-called Suwalki Gap, a

sparsely populated area of Polish territory between Belarus and

the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. The Gap's takeover by Russia

would isolate the Baltic states from the rest of NATO.

On Monday, Lithuania installed anti-drone concrete protection

at the Neris substation which provides power to the capital

Vilnius and is 20 km (12 miles) from the border with Belarus.

The concrete blocks will later be tested by having explosives

fired at them in a military test range.

Later this year, Lithuania plans to begin producing and

assembling bunkers to cover important parts of many of its

substations, such as transformers and control rooms, which would

be hard to replace.

"We are planning to install these in most of our

substations... all of Lithuania feels the proximity (of Russia

and Belarus)", said Rokas Masiulis, CEO of Lithuanian grid

operator Litgrid. "There are also cyber, electronic and other

types of security".

The plan is tailored to protect vital parts of the power

grid rather than all of it, as fitting all substations with

anti-drone systems would be very costly.

AIMING TO SHOW OTHER STATES 'WHAT CAN BE DONE'

Lithuania wants to stock up on important grid components

that could take months to produce or procure, Vaiciunas said.

Ukraine's power grid operator is advising Lithuania on the

use of concrete blocks and anti-drone nets, and other ways to

secure the infrastructure, Masiulis said.

Lithuania intends to spend 150 million euros on grid

security, almost double the amount set out in the plan submitted

to the EU, a Litgrid spokesperson said.

"We believe that our projects will be copy-pasted in other

countries, we will be able to show others what can be done",

Masiulis said.

Poland's PSE meanwhile wants its own armed security unit and

helicopters to help protect the link with Lithuania via the

Suwalki Gap, company officials said.