More than 1,600 planes have been hit by mysterious GPS jamming across Europe since Sunday, Daily Mail reported. Many fear Russia is behind this.
Extent of GPS jamming of planes across Northern Europe revealed
Planes flying over and near the Baltic Sea in northern Europe have faced technical issues due to jamming. A total of 1614 planes, mostly civilian, have reported problems since then.
A map shared on X by an open-source intelligence account, which monitors interference, displays incidents spread across Poland and southern Sweden, reported lbc.co.uk.
Although most incidents seem to be in Polish airspace, OSINT blogs have mentioned that planes flying in airspace belonging to Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Latvia, and Lithuania have also experienced interference problems.
According to lbc.co.uk, there seems to be minimal to no interference in Belarus, a strong ally of Russia, or in Kaliningrad, the Russian province separated from the mainland by sea and land.
Newsweek stated that the increase in interference is mainly linked to the Kaliningrad region, where Russia is thought to possess significant resources for electronic warfare.
Russian military’s advanced interference capabilities raise concerns for NATO
According to a Lithuanian defense source, the Russian armed forces have various military equipment designed for interfering with Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), such as jamming and spoofing, with different ranges, durations, and intensities.
A prominent military expert highlighted that Russia’s superiority in electronic warfare should serve as a warning for the UK’s military.”Those capabilities are used to create an ‘atmosphere of threat and a sense of helplessness in society”, a Polish Defense Ministry official said.
Dr. Melanie Garson, who is an associate professor of International Security at University College London, shared her thoughts with Forces.net about the recent European planes GPS jamming incident.
The UCL professor said: “Russia particularly has previously had an edge on this and they have necessity. The mother of invention over the last two years during the war have actually actively solidified their capabilities in this regard.
They’ve had the chance to use it more concretely and there’s a real concern that, particularly NATO, currently doesn’t match that capability.”
