Swedish authorities on Thursday accused Russia of being behind a surge in GPS interference over the Baltic Sea that has increasingly disrupted aviation.
Incidents of interference with global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), including GPS, in Swedish airspace have jumped from 55 in 2023 to 733 so far this year, according to the Swedish Transport Agency.
“We have done analyses over a longer period and collected data. We can conclude that the interference is originating from Russian territory,” Andreas Holmgren, the agency’s head of aviation, told AFP.
The disruptions include both jamming, or signal blocking, and spoofing, which refers to feeding false positioning data. Initially limited to Sweden’s eastern airspace over international waters, the interference has now spread across a wider area of both land and sea.
“This is serious and is a security risk for civil aviation, not least given the extent, duration and nature of the interference,” Holmgren said.
In June, Sweden and a group of Baltic Sea countries raised the issue with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The ICAO Council, where Russia is a member, expressed “grave concern” and demanded that Moscow end the interference.
The Swedish Transport Agency said disruptions have only intensified since then. The countries, which include Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, plan to bring the matter to ICAO’s general assembly this fall.
The warning came just days after GPS jamming was reported on a plane carrying Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, as it prepared to land in Bulgaria. The aircraft landed safely, but EU officials blamed Russia for the incident.
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