Russia is suspected of launching a record-breaking 63-hour-long attack on GPS signals in the Baltic region. The incident, which affected hundreds of passenger jets earlier this month, occurred amid rising tensions between Russia and the NATO military alliance more than two years since the start of Russia鈥檚 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
鈥淲e have seen an increase in GPS jamming since the start of Russia鈥檚 war against Ukraine, and allies have publicly warned that Russia has been behind GPS jamming affecting aviation and shipping,鈥� a NATO official told 快猫短视频. 鈥淩ussia has a track record of jamming GPS signals and has a range of capabilities for electronic warfare.鈥�
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Europe has experienced an uptick in the number of large-scale disruptions of GPS and other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). The disruption has been felt near the Mediterranean and Black Sea, and near the Baltic Sea and Arctic. Since December 2023, for instance, the Baltic region has experienced fairly consistent . That roughly coincided with Russian media reports that the Russian navy鈥檚 Baltic Fleet based in Kaliningrad 鈥� a Russian enclave located between Lithuania and Poland 鈥� was conducting exercises.
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Such interference can include jamming of satellite signals to block service. It can also include 鈥渟poofing鈥� of signals 鈥� a technique that can be used to make aircraft GPS receivers appear to be in completely different locations, says at the University of Texas at Austin. His analysis has shown that the Christmas-time GPS interference in Europe included multiple incidents of , along with a spoofing attack originating from inside Russia. 鈥淚t is apparent that we鈥檙e seeing an unprecedented amount of GNSS interference in Europe,鈥� he says.
The newest record-breaking run of jamming in the Baltic region started on the evening of 22 March and lasted 63 hours and 40 minutes 鈥� until the afternoon of 25 March, according to an open-source intelligence analyst who uses the social media account . The attack included 24 hours of interference patterns spread across parts of Sweden, Germany and Poland, before a switch to more focused interference primarily covering Poland, which lasted for about 40 hours.
More than 1600 aircraft were affected by this record-breaking period of disruption, according to another analyst using the pseudonym . In an earlier incident on 13 March, a Royal Air Force aircraft carrying UK Defence Secretary experienced GPS signal interference on both legs of a journey between the UK and Poland as the aircraft flew near Kaliningrad.
鈥淥ne of the bright sides to this is the Russians are helping us realise we depend on GPS for way too many things,鈥� says at the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, a Virginia-based non-profit focused on protecting and augmenting GPS signals.
Although aircraft can rely on radar and land-based beacons when GPS is unavailable, the workarounds can increase workloads for pilots and air traffic controllers while raising the chance of a mishap, says Goward. In 2019, a US filed with NASA鈥檚 Aviation Safety Reporting System described how GPS jamming led a passenger jet to nearly crash into a mountain in Idaho. 鈥淓ventually somebody鈥檚 going to get hurt,鈥� says Goward.
Improved awareness among airline crews when entering areas with known jamming or spoofing activities has helped reduce the risk, says a spokesperson from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. The agency has also been working on using ground-based or on-board inertial guidance systems.
