Russia ramps up GPS jamming with airliners at risk in European sabotage campaign
Russia is accelerating its electronic warfare campaign against Nato countries through GPS jamming attacks on commercial air travel and shipping, amid warnings from the alliance that such operations are likely to feature in any future conflict.
Finnair, Finlandâs air carrier, this week announced that it was suspending its daily flights to Tartu in eastern Estonia for a month because of interference with GPS signals over the Baltic Sea region that prevented two aircraft from landing last week.
Estoniaâs foreign minister, Margus Tsahkna, blamed âRussiaâs hostile activitiesâ for the âhybrid attackâ on the region, while his Lithuanian and Latvian counterparts warned of the risk of a possible air disaster caused by GPS jamming.
Airlines including British Airways, Ryanair and Wizz Air have reported similar problems when flying near the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, situated between Poland and Lithuania, and the Balticsâ eastern borders with Russia.
Last month, British officials said they believed Russia had jammed the satellite signal of an RAF jet transporting Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, back to the UK from Poland.
Jamming involves overwhelming signals received from global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) such as GPS or the EUâs Galileo, preventing a plane, for example, from receiving or sending information, increasing the risk of accidents. Spoofing, which involves falsifying location information, has also been reported over the Black Sea.
Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow in the Russia and Eurasia programme at Chatham House, said Russiaâs recent jamming attacks were âan evolutionâ in its electronic warfare (EW) campaign. He told i: âIt is stepping up the extent of the damage; itâs moving up a gear and causing more disruption.
âItâs an undeniably hostile act from Russia, which has just been kind of forgiven, which means they expand further and further⌠there are now huge swathes of Europe from the Baltic Sea right down to the Black Sea where a lot of the navigational safety aids that they had taken for granted previously for avoiding collisions, for example, are just no longer available.â
He added: âNow that Russia has discovered that this does cause disruption and costs and damage and chaos in Europe, thatâs an incentive to do it on its own. The fact thereâs been no response is an incentive to step it up, and now of course weâve seen it stepping up.â
The next step, he warned, could be intercepting land traffic.
Nato told i in a statement that jamming âcan pose a threat to the safety of maritime and aviation navigation, including civil aviationâ, noting that Russia âhas a track record of jamming GPS signals and has a range of capabilities for electronic warfareâ.
âWe have seen an increase in GPS jamming since the start of Russiaâs war against Ukraine, and Allies have publicly warned that Russia has been behind GPS jamming,â it added. âIn the Middle East, Russia has used GPS jamming against Allied air forces fighting Isis for years.â
It warned: âElectronic warfare, including against GPS, is likely to feature in any future conflict, and we welcome Alliesâ investments in more jamming-resistant technologies. The Alliance remains vigilant to any Russian interference and threats across all domains.â
GPS jamming and spoofing have been a regular occurrence across the Baltic region, Poland and the Black Sea since Russiaâs invasion of Ukraine in 2022. However, reports of interference have escalated dramatically since December, affecting tens of thousands of civilian flights.
GPS disruption is also affecting shipping in the Baltic Sea, prompting the head of the Swedish navy to warn this month of the dangers to maritime transport, and urge Nato to take action such as âusing Nato assets to accompany merchant vessels to help with navigation or other issuesâ.
Russia has not commented on the jamming incidents. However, numerous reports have pointed to Kaliningrad, as well as sites in the north-west of Russia, as likely locations behind the attacks.
Dr Thomas Withington, associate fellow in electronic warfare and air defence at the Royal United Services Institute, said jamming in the Baltics was believed to have been carried out by systems known as Tobol-M, which can interfere with GPS and other systems across a large area.
âThe ostensible reason [for the jamming] is to protect large Russian targets and assets in the Baltic and Nordic region,â he told i. âSo thatâs principally in Kaliningrad, and then also assets in whatâs now known as the Leningrad Military District [the north-west corner of Russia, bordering Finland].â
He said that Russia was using jamming to protect its many military targets in that region against GNSS-guided weapons such as Nato missiles or Ukrainian drones.
âItâs hoped that by having a huge amount of jamming, the GNSS receivers on those weapons wouldnât work; wouldnât be able to find their targets with any reasonable accuracy.â
He added: âThat being said, if itâs causing inconvenience to navigation, to maritime navigation in the Baltic and in the Nordic regions of Nato allies, for Mr Putin that can only be a benefit.â
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War warned this week: âThe Kremlin is pursuing a hybrid campaign directly targeting Nato states, including using GPS jamming and sabotaging military logistics in Nato membersâ territory.â
Dr Giles pointed to the spike in arrests of people operating on behalf of Russian military intelligence in European countries including Germany, Poland and the UK. Last week a British man was charged under the National Security Act with planning an arson attack on behalf of the Russian Wagner Group. Alongside these incidents, which include reconnoitring and attempted sabotage of logistics networks across Europe, jamming incidents could be seen as a broader campaign of sabotage across the continent.
Senior military officials and experts have warned that Russia would deploy electronic warfare or attempt to seize vital communications infrastructure before a crisis or potential war with Nato.
A report presented at the 2021 International Conference of Cyber Conflict warned of an âintense and urgent subsequent pattern of activity by Russian military and intelligence organisations directed at civilian internet and telecommunications facilities across multiple continents.â
Before its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia seized control of the Simferopol Internet Exchange point and telecommunications cables connecting the peninsula to the mainland. This isolated Crimea, giving Russia total control of its information space.
The report added: âIt should not be assumed that the targets for this disruption will be wholly, or even primarily, military: while EW is supposed to achieve the military aims of âdelaying timely information support to decision-makers, misguiding them with false information, constructing information blockades, warping databases, and destructionâ.â
Military experts in Russia have predicted that in an initial period of war, âEW Troops will be tasked with suppressing broadcast and online media, including social media â specifically âblocking radio and television signals, and message traffic in social networksââ, as well as connected devices from mobile phones up to national infrastructure affecting broad-scale geographic areas.
Mr Giles said: âThis warlike act has been kind of normalised. This is all stuff that Russia can incrementally introduce to get us to a position where finally we suddenly realise that nothing can move, and then of course that is a major problem for defending Europe against Russia.
âThis is precisely where Russia wants us, because then itâs accepted as normal that Russia can interdict movement in Europe, and thatâs a very dangerous situation to be in.â
Dr Withington suggested Natoâs lack of response so far might be down to âthe idea of having a graduated response to thingsâ.
However, he added: âI think if you get a situation where, heaven forbid, an airliner crashes because of it, and Russia can be proven to be behind it⌠then I think the calculus changes completely and youâre potentially looking at an article five situation.â
Under Natoâs Article 5, an attack on one member state is taken as an attack on all.