In the beginning of April, Lithuania was the first European nation to halt all imports of Russian natural gas.

Sunday marked the end of the nation’s imports of oil, and electricity as well, informs the Lithuanian Ministry of Energy, according to Danish media Finans.

Minister of Energy Dainus Kreivys calls it an important step towards energy independence.

”But it’s also an expression of our solidarity with Ukraine. We need to stop financing the Russian war machine,” he notes.

For many years, Lithuania received natural gas through a pipeline running from Russia down through the Baltics and to the Russian enclave Kaliningrad, which is located between Lithuania and Poland.

Going forward, natural gas will be supplied by vessels.

Natural gas can be liquefied when cooled down to an extreme temperature, allowing it to be transported in barrels aboard vessels from the US, for instance.

Moreover, a natural gas pipeline between Poland and the Baltic nations has been opened, writes German media Deutsche Welle, according to Finans.

Russia has previously threatened to cut off gas to European nations and even acted on such threats.

By the end of April, Russian gas company Gazprom announced that Poland and Bulgaria would no longer receive gas on the grounds that the two nations refused to pay for such supplies in rubles.

On Saturday, Russia halted natural gas supplies to Finland for the same reasons.

Russia’s move also comes hot on the heels of Finland submitting an application to join the Western defense alliance NATO.

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