Lithuania's Ministry of Energy is planning to donate Soviet-era spare parts to Ukraine to help repair the national grid, it confirmed to POLITICO, a day after Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said he was in talks with the country to secure power plant equipment.

It means decaying power stations built in the days of the USSR could hold the key to keeping the lights on in Ukraine, as Moscow’s attacks plunge millions into darkness.

“They proposed to use their thermal power stations, which are closed,” Galushchenko said. “To use them as donors, that is, the possibility to dismantle and obtain the spare parts we need.”

Lithuania's Ministry of Energy said that there was no risk to their own consumers in terms of electricity and heat supply as only unused equipment will be transferred. "For example, Ukrainian experts will visit the Vilnius Thermal Power Plant No. 3 (CHP-3), which has been out of use for electricity and heat generation since 2016 and the CHP-3 units were decommissioned in 2022."

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has called for Soviet-era parts to counteract Russia’s “energy terror” offensive. “They continue to hit our energy facilities with missiles, destroy transformers and generators. Unfortunately, in recent weeks Russia has destroyed 80 percent of the thermal power plants.”

“We know that you have old Soviet-type equipment,” Shmyhal told Estonian public broadcaster ERR last week. “It would help us a lot if we had spare parts to restore the affected power plant units and bring some of the power capacities back into operation.”

An estimated 1.9 million people have been left without electricity after a massive wave of Russian strikes that began on March 22, with Ukraine’s largest private power provider, DTEK, losing four-fifths of its generation capacity. Prior to that, Kyiv had been producing surplus power and had hopes of stepping up exports to EU countries to bolster its national budget.

"While Ukraine is fighting for our freedom and the freedom of the whole of Europe, Lithuania has and will continue to send support. The energy sector is no exception. So far, we have already provided support and delivered more than €13 million worth of energy equipment to the Ukrainians," said Minister of Energy Dainius Kreivys.

On Sunday, the International Atomic Energy Agency warned that drone attacks around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant — Europe’s largest atomic energy station — “had the potential to undermine the integrity of the reactor’s containment system.”

This article has been updated.