How Ukraine Unplugged from Russia and Joined Europe’s Power Grid with Unprecedented Speed

The country's power system was disconnected from the larger Russian network on February 24. The trial was supposed to prove that Ukraine could operate on its own. The test was a requirement for linking with the European grid. Russia invaded four hours after the exercise started.

The connection to Europe that was not supposed to happen until 2023 became urgent, and engineers aimed to safely achieve it in just a matter of weeks. The two systems were synchronized on March 16. It was done in two weeks, according to a statement by Kadri Simson, the European Union commissioner for energy. Paul Deane, an energy policy researcher at the University College Cork in Ireland, says that is unusual.