Russia Suspected of Jamming GPS Signals for Thousands of Airline Flights

Thousands of commercial airline flights in Europe have reportedly had their GPS data jammed, as Russia is suspected of waging the electronic attacks amid its ongoing war in Ukraine, according to British media reports.

Almost 3,800 flights originating from or arriving in the U.K. have had their GPS signals obstructed since August, with tens of thousands more flights that passed over the Baltic Sea enduring the same fate around the same period, according to a report published on Monday by The Guardian.

The Baltic Sea, which some have dubbed “NATO Lake” due to Finland and Sweden recently joining the alliance, has been a hotbed of regional tension during the Ukraine war. With the exception of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, every nation with a Baltic coastline is now a NATO member.

British tabloid The Sun reported that analysis from the website GPSJAM.org shows approximately 46,000 flights experienced issues with their navigational data over the Baltic from August through March, although it was unclear what role, if any, Russia may have played.

Newsweek reached out for comment to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email on Tuesday night.

A U.K. military aircraft carrying British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps reportedly had its GPS signals jammed during a flight near Kaliningrad in March. A British government spokesperson told the BBC at the time that the flight “experienced GPS jamming when they flew close to Kaliningrad,” while adding that the experience was not “not unusual” near Kaliningrad.

Destinations at the highest risk of experiencing GPS blockages reportedly include Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and parts of Finland. Turkey, far from the Baltic but still relatively close to the war zone on the Black Sea, is also considered a high-risk destination.

Inaccurate GPS data presents a potential safety risk for aircraft because the system is used to aid navigation by tracking location. However, the practical risk of GPS obstruction to the safety of flights is minimal, since airplanes, especially those operating commercially, carry several additional systems that track location.

Jamming and “spoofing”—disrupting signals by sending fake data to satellites that can result in incorrect location reports—is considered a form of electronic warfare (EW) that is used to interfere with GPS and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), both of which are commonly used by airplanes.

The practice is not limited to suspected Russian attacks. Israel’s military has used GPS jamming extensively in an attempt to thwart drone attacks during the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to Haaretz.

Russia is believed to have invested significant EW resources in Kaliningrad, with a Lithuanian Defense Ministry spokesperson telling Newsweek last month that signal jamming “has, and will likely continue, to negatively affect the civilian aviation in the region.”

“Russian armed forces have a wide spectrum of military equipment dedicated for GNSS interference, including jamming and spoofing, at varying distances, duration and intensity,” the spokesperson said.