The interference in the GPS, such as those suffered by the plane in which Ursula von der was traveling last Sunday, have become a headache for pilots who fly over east of Europe. It is one of the tens of thousands of flights – Centenares every day – that have been affected in the last three years by the disturbances in the signals of the global positioning system attributed to deliberate actions of Russia. That practice has grown strongly in recent months.
From the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in February 2022, interference in the GPS – which affect both aviation and maritime navigation. These types of interruptions are common in the conflict areas and its surroundings and the Kremlin argues that they are due exclusively to electronic war operations for defensive purposes, a series of actions aimed at protecting the critical infrastructure of the country from external attacks. These explanations do not convince the EU too much, which sanctioned nine Russian citizens last July for this reason, including the two largest military of the 841º Independent Electronic War Center of the Baltic Fleet.
The sanctions were approved a few weeks after 17 Member States, headed by Lithuania, urged Brussels to take measures against alterations in the global positioning system from Russia and Belarus. In a letter, the signatories rule out that these interference are “random incidents” and qualify them as “systematic and deliberate actions” and.
In June alone, the pilots who flew over Lithuanian territory reported interference on 1,022 occasions – very above 46 of the same month in 2024 and 585 last May. Lithuania ensures that it has identified a dozen locations – from where disturbances are generated.
The loss of the GPS signal in full flight does not imply, in principle, a serious risk. Commercial aircraft have several alternative systems. Even so, the increase in the intensity and frequency of interruptions reduces security and inevitably elevates the possibilities of an accident. In addition to the interference, in recent months the cases of spoofingin which a device transmits an analogous signal to that of the satellite, but of greater power, with which it deceives the receiver, which receives erroneous variables of position or time.
Finland and Estonia, the EU members with the most extensive border with Russia, already accused Moscow last year to deliberately interfere the positioning signals in their airspace. The regular route between and Tartu had to be suspended due to the high risk of touching land at the airport of the second most populated city in Estonia, which has been modernized to allow, as most airfields of the continent, the landings with alternative systems to the global satellite positioning.
Electronic War
Interferences that affect community territory do not originate solely in Kaliningrad. Russian electronic war systems are used daily in Ukraine to inhibit communications of enemy drones, and even divert the missile trajectory. The Russian army also recurrently annuls the GPS signal around Moscow and St. Petersburg, or in regions away from the front in which there are. The disturbances are also common around the Black Sea, where Ukraine aquatic drones have repeatedly hit the ships of the Russian Navy.
In the Baltic Sea, Maritime Navigation by GPS is less and less frequent and, insurers have raised their prices.
And in the northeast remote of Norway, thousands of kilometers from the War Front, but near the base of the Northern fleet – which houses eight of the 11 Russian submarines capable of launching long -range nuclear missiles – the authorities try to adapt to life without GPS. In addition to thousands of internal flights, interference have also affected health helicopters, which offer an essential service in one of the areas less densely populated in Europe.
After the incident in the plane in which Von der Leyen, the defense commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, on Monday to strengthen the European satellite navigation system – alternative to the US GPS – which was launched in 2016. “The interference and the spoofing In GPS signals, our air and sea transport damages. You can help! We will increase the number of satellites in low terrestrial orbit to improve the robustness of the system, ”the Lithuanian published in X.
