Vilnius - The shutdown of Lithuania's sole nuclear power plant at the end of this year will not make the country dependent on Russia for all of its energy supplies, Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said Thursday.

"There could be supplies from Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia itself. We do not see that it is necessary to award (contracts for) imports from neighbouring countries to any particular monopoly," Kubilius said on Lithuanian radio.

The Baltic states' only nuclear power station, located near Ignalina in northern Lithuania, provides power throughout the region but is due to go offline on December 31.

A planned replacement reactor in Lithuania to serve all three Baltic states plus Poland will not be ready until 2018 at the earliest, forcing Lithuania to seek alternative supplies.

With a planned electricity link to Sweden that would join the Nordic and Baltic energy grids yet to be constructed, Lithuania fears that its dependence on Russian supplies will increase.

Kubilius was critical of former president Algirdas Brazauskas, who has urged the Lithuanian government to sign agreements with Russian suppliers as a matter of urgency.

Plans for the construction of a replacement reactor in partnership with Estonia, Latvia and Poland, have made slow progress.

Closure the Soviet-era Ignalina plant, which is of a similar type to the infamous Chernobyl reactor, was one of the terms under which Lithuania was allowed to join the European Union in 2004.

Lithuania subsequently lobbied for the plant to be granted an extension of its lifespan but was rebuffed by the European Union. (dpa)