The ‘Baltic Beast’ is at it again. Mysterious – or not so mysterious – GPS signal disruption has become a growing problem for civilian air traffic, not just in the Baltic but also the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. It is clear that Russia is behind it, but why?
Airplanes have, while in flight, encountered signals designed to interfere with their GPS and other systems, whether by jamming them or spoofing, making them think they are somewhere else from their actual location. Last year, there were some 50 suspected attacks every week, but there were a full 350 in March and this month looks set to see a similar tally. Tracking the strength of the jamming signal has allowed its source to be located pretty accurately: in the Baltic it seems to be one of Russia’s ten Topol electronic warfare complexes, based in its Kaliningrad exclave.
This is more likely to be part of a generalised campaign to put pressure on Europe
Russia has a particular strength in electronic warfare (EW). This is increasingly evident in Ukraine where EW is being deployed to disrupt drone and precision-guided bomb and rocket attacks, as well as the signals from Elon Musk’s Starlink communications satellites – central to Ukraine’s military and civilian networks. Assets such as the Krasukha battlefield signal jammer have become priority targets for Kyiv’s forces. Russia is also suspected of selectively jamming in the past, such as over the RAF’s Akrotiri base on Cyprus.
However, the growing use of widespread and indiscriminate jamming and spoofing is relatively new. Regardless of what some over-excited headlines might suggest, this jamming is not specifically aimed at British holidaymakers – although the jet carrying Defence Secretary Grant Shapps back from Poland last month was reportedly affected as part of what may well have been a deliberate attack.
There is the suggestion that the stepped-up operations in the Baltic reflect Finland’s joining Nato, soon to be followed by Sweden. Likewise, Black Sea jamming is not least a way to hinder Ukrainian air and naval operations, as well as mask the movements of Russian ships.
However, this is more likely to be part of a generalised campaign to put pressure on Europe. Jamming some GPS signals may sound trivial, and in a way it is. After all, it is largely more of an inconvenience than anything else. Although there are cases of flights being grounded or redirected, even civilian aircraft have alternative systems in case they lose GPS, and in any case these signals are not used in crucial take-offs and landings.
Yet the essence of Russian ‘political warfare’ operations is not to rely on some grand coup de mains, however welcome they may be. They are much more reliant on an accumulation of small-scale irritants and costs in the hope that they eventually form a critical mass able of influencing politics. As a Russian scholar working in this field put it, ‘some day, when their flight has been delayed again, when their gas bill goes up again, when they can’t see a doctor because money that could have been spent on healthcare went to Ukraine instead, then European voters may start questioning’ the official line.
We need to appreciate that our dependence on technology in general and interconnection in particular currently makes us vulnerable. It’s not just the Russians, although they are continuing to develop new and more powerful systems such as the Tirada-2, a follow-on for the Topol, due to be in service by 2027. The threat is much more general. There was a reason why we eventually stopped Chinese company Huawei from being at the heart of our 5G telecommunications network, but at the same time, Chinese hardware and apps abound. Concerns have already been raised that Chinese-built cars could be tracked, listened in on, or simply halted from Beijing.
The fact of the matter is that many of the states who regard us as antagonists have a much more holistic notion of their covert campaigns, regarding disinformation, subversion, intimidation, hacking and jamming as parts of a single coherent strategy. We, on the other hand, tend to keep everything in its own little box, to be treated separately. It’s a neat and tidy approach, but it’s also out of date and fundamentally wrong.
Why is Russia jamming plane signals across Europe?
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22.04.2024
The ‘Baltic Beast’ is at it again. Mysterious – or not so mysterious – GPS signal disruption has become a growing problem for civilian air traffic, not just in the Baltic but also the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. It is clear that Russia is behind it, but why?
Airplanes have, while in flight, encountered signals designed to interfere with their GPS and other systems, whether by jamming them or spoofing, making them think they are somewhere else from their actual location. Last year, there were some 50 suspected attacks every week, but there were a full 350 in March and this month looks set to see a similar tally. Tracking the strength of the jamming signal has allowed its source to be located pretty accurately: in the Baltic it seems to be one of Russia’s ten Topol electronic warfare complexes, based in its Kaliningrad exclave.
This is more likely to be part of a generalised campaign to put pressure on Europe
Russia has a particular strength in electronic warfare (EW). This is increasingly evident in Ukraine where EW is being........
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