-About 800 bakeries in Germany went dark on Thursday as a cry for help over energy costs.

-Customers had to sit in the dark to eat their sandwiches and pastries, NDR reported.

-Bakeries are badly affected by the energy crisis as ovens use a lot of power, a guild said.

Hundreds of bakeries in Germany sold their bread and buns in the dark on Thursday in protest over skyrocketing energy costs as Russia turns the screws on supplies of natural gas.

Since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February, energy prices have soared because the Kremlin reduced its flows of natural gas to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in response to Western sanctions. It's forced governments and some businesses to reduce power consumption.

The German guild association Bäcker- und Konditorenvereinigung Nord e.V. (BKV) said in a statement this week that about 800 bakeries in northern Germany would turn the lights off on Thursday. It's part of a campaign to make the German government aware that the energy crisis threatens bakeries, BKV said.

The bakeries were still open, but customers had to sit in the dark to eat their sandwiches and pastries, German broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) reported, with only the front displays lit up.