London – The Kremlin hybrid war campaign blocked at the top of the European agenda.
A plane carrying the high official of the continent has lost its GPS navigation while the tunes above the continent are wary east during the weekend and were forced to land using paper cards. This was the most prominent case to date, officials and experts from a Russian strategy that disrupts not only trips said on Tuesday but by jeopardizing.
The theft of the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen landed safely in Bulgaria, a short distance from the Russian territory. But he gave a shock to European fears about the suspected interference of Moscow with Western signals.
Once a substantive nuisance, the problem has increased in an increasing security problem – degenerating into a step with the Moscow War in Ukraine – and has the continent that rushes to adapt.
“Work on NATO day and night ‘
Bulgarian authorities later confirmed that the satellite signal guiding the airplane navigation system had been neutralized. The European Commission said Bulgaria suspected “a blatant interference from Russia”.
The Kremlin did not respond publicly, but spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Financial Times, who initially reported the story, that his information was “incorrect”.
NATO takes on the scrambling of the GPS signals “very seriously” and “works day and night to counter, to prevent it and to ensure that they will not correct it,” Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Tuesday.
He framed the interference of the signal as part of a much wider campaign covering the cup of the submarine cables of the Baltic Sea and a cyber attack on the National British Health Service.
The threat of Russia “increased every day,” he said.
The disturbance of the Von der Leyen plane put the problem under the spotlight at a time when Europe is already in terms of war in Ukraine and its overflow effects.
While pilots and ship captains expected occasional breakdowns near the borders of Russia or conflict zones, incidents have jumped in recent years.
The Bulgarian Air Traffic Services Authority said that there was a “notable increase” of GPS incidents, including jamming, since Russia launched its large -scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In June, 13 Member States of the European Union raised the alarm on the scrambling and the threats of the usurpation disturbing air and sea trips.
According to an EU document, Poland recorded 2,732 cases of interference in January 2025, against 1,908 at the end of 2023. Lithuania recorded 1,185 cases during the same month, more than double the figure from March 2024.
The document describes interference as “not random incidents but as a systemic and deliberate action of Russia and Bélarus”.
The best German military commander, General Carsten Breuer, said on Monday that there had been a significant increase in GPS jamming incidents since the start of the war in Ukraine, adding that he had personally lived it twice, once during the Baltic Sea and again during a military exercise in Lithuania.
Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden and Germany have officially declared such an interference a form of Russian hybrid war.
A “happy propaganda coup”?
Open source research drawing the origins of interference on several occasions to two hot spots: the exclave of Kaliningrad from Russia, wedged between Poland and Lithuania, and the Saint Petersburg region in western Russia. The two regions are hosting a high concentration of Russian military units specializing in electronic war.
In March 2024, a Royal Air Force plane carrying the Secretary to the United Kingdom then to La Défense, Grant Shapps, also reported a usurpation incident, where false location data were transmitted to the airplane navigation systems.
The plane, which had stolen from Kaliningrad, was able to continue its trip safely, but such tactics have passed the planes in the past.
The incident with Von der Leyen’s plane occurred as it was a four -day visit to the EU member states that borders Russia, Belarus or the Black Sea.
Although “incredibly irresponsible”, Von der Leyen’s jamming plane was not necessarily a “malicious action” directed against her specifically, said Thomas Withington, an electronic war and air defense expert at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank in London.
“I think that in this occasion, Ms. Von Der Leyen’s planes have been unlucky,” he told NBC News, adding that Russia generally transmits scrambling signals with the intention of disturbing weapons or drones guided by satellite.
“I think that the fact that his plane was stuck is probably a kind of happy propaganda coup for Mr. Putin and his government,” he said.
As the disturbances increase, the West has intensified countermeasures.
The EU described the plans on Monday to deploy additional satellites in low terrestrial orbit in order to strengthen its capacity to detect interference.
With Poland, Sweden and Denmark, a terrestrial positioning system is installed around the Baltic Sea.
Poland has also installed coastal surveillance stations to trace interference in real time, while Italy has announced its intention to strengthen security on state flights, including the classification of flight data and restriction on access to monitoring and flight plans.
Some airlines update procedures to prepare teams for prolonged breakdowns.
Eric Schouten, intelligence analyst and CEO of Dyami Security Intelligence, said that the incident was not a “major escalation”, explaining that the pilots were now formed using rescue systems and how to identify the usurpation and the scrambling.
Instead, Russia disrupted GPS systems to “test NATO’s response,” he said.
“NATO uses a lot of GPS tools and equipment to fly, to guide bombs,” he said, adding such interference can also affect mobile devices and services such as Google Maps.
“In Poland or in Baltic or Sweden, based on general practitioners in your car, in your navigation system, it is not always the smartest thing to do,” he said.
“It is a perfect tactic to let the enemy know that you control the things they use daily.”
Freddie Clayton reported in London and Andy Eckardt in Mayiny, Germany.
