Russia’s New Hybrid Attack on the Baltic States: Basically Explained What and How is Happening

The news agency “Reuters” announces that Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna accused Russia, but did not provide any evidence. This comes after Finnair decided to suspend flights to Tartu, Estonia for a month due to GPS interference.

Globally, there have been reports of an increase in GPS glitches, especially since last year, leading to fears that the risk of accidents could increase when planes go off course.

What is GPS jamming?

GPS is a network of satellites and signal receiving devices used for location, navigation and timekeeping on Earth. GPS is one of the most important navigation tools in aviation, replacing expensive ground-based devices that sent radio signals to guide planes to land.

But it’s also relatively easy to block or “jam” GPS signals with over-the-counter devices, and the military has invested in technology that can do just that.

A frequency-transmitting device is used to block or jam GPS signals, usually by broadcasting signals from the ground that are stronger than satellite signals.

Spoofing can involve one country’s military sending false GPS signals to an enemy plane or drone to disrupt its operations. This is often considered more dangerous than jamming.

For commercial aviation, the problem arises when such a false signal is picked up by a passenger plane’s GPS receiver, which can mislead the pilot and air traffic control by showing the wrong time or coordinates without warning.

Where is this happening?

In December, aviation consultancy OPSGROUP reported an increase in fraud cases involving private and commercial aircraft in the Middle East, including Iraq, Iran, Israel and the Black Sea.

This mostly affects areas near war zones, as the technology is used to derail suicide drones. The Baltic countries have been reporting on this issue for many years, especially since 2022, when the war in Ukraine began.

In the past six months, interference has increased around the Baltic Sea, said Lauri Soini, a Finnair pilot and chairman of the Safety and Security Committee of the Finnish Pilots Association.

Mr Soini said the GPS interference was now affecting an area stretching from Poland across the Baltic states to the coasts of Sweden and Finland, and was also affecting lower altitudes and maritime traffic.

Why is this a problem?

In addition to GPS, most modern airlines have various sensors and sources to determine their position, so they can fly if there is interference.

But airlines still rely heavily on GPS, according to pilots and industry experts. If interference occurs, GPS may need to be disabled and in most cases cannot be reset for the remainder of the flight. This can cause a lot of anxiety and delays in both take off and landing as certain activities require the GPS to work. Also, on some private jets, GPS navigation is the only form of navigation.

However, AirBaltic safety manager and flight captain Janis Kristopas said that the Tartu incident with Finnair was unexpected. Most major airports have a variety of navigation aids if GPS doesn’t work, he said.

And given that tampering and falsification devices are very diverse, it is difficult for the airline industry to offer a universal technological solution that can reduce the risk. Instead, authorities aim to train pilots to detect jamming and decoy devices more quickly.

Old problems

For several weeks now, Russia has been conducting a hybrid attack against the Baltic countries, during which it disrupts and blocks the GPS signals of commercial flights. Although this attack affects all the Baltic countries, Estonia is feeling the most disruption so far, where flights to the city of Tartu have been suspended by the Finnish airline Finnair until the end of May.

The Facebook group “Weather and Climate in Lithuania” showed how GPS interference looks like on a map. On the map – GPS disturbances were recorded on April 23-30.

“The nasty big neighbor continues to ruin the lives of the little neighbors. Especially as you can see on the map, Estonia suffers, where the GPS signal is disrupted more often than elsewhere and thus causes additional challenges for aircraft pilots, but flights are safe, because there are other means of navigation besides GPS.

Despite this, as flightradar24 wrote on Monday, Finnair is suspending flights from Helsinki to Tartu (Estonia) until the end of May due to GPS interference. Tartu Airport currently only has a GPS-based arrival procedure, so planes cannot land if GPS interference continues. Flights are expected to resume after the airport implements a non-GPS aircraft approach procedure.

“GPS Disruption Increases in 2023” In the end. Russia disrupts signals not only in Estonia, around the exclave of Karalauči, the Suwalki corridor, but also in the vicinity of Moscow and St. Petersburg, apparently in order to prevent increased Ukrainian drone attacks. “Unfortunately, where there are fewer airplanes, there are fewer important meteorological measurements carried out by aircraft,” writes “Orai ir klimatas in Lithuania”.

Baltic ministers have already warned about the threat

The foreign ministers of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia accused Russia of disrupting the work of the GPS satellite navigation system in the Baltic Sea region. As a result, they warned of an increased threat of aviation accidents in the region, according to The Financial Times.

According to the ministers, on April 25 and 26 two Finnish airline Finnair planes were flying from Helsinki to the Estonian city of Tartu, but were forced to return to the departure airport due to GPS interference. The pilots made this decision because they were not sure they would be able to reach their destination safely.

“If someone turns off your lights when you’re driving at night, the journey will become dangerous. The situation in the Baltic region near the borders of Russia has now become too dangerous to be ignored,” emphasized the Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis.

Estonian authorities consider GPS interference “part of Russia’s hostile activities” and raise the issue in talks with allies, the country’s foreign minister Margus Tsahkna noted. Moscow’s actions “are a hybrid attack and a threat to our people and security that we will not tolerate,” he said.

From 2023 until August 2024 since the end of March, the number of cases of GPS signal jamming in the Baltic Sea region has increased from less than 50 to 350 per week.

On several airlines

Based on an analysis of records by the website GPSJAM.org, The Sun reports that there have been approximately 46,000 flight navigation failures since last August.

Of these, Ryanair accounted for 2,300 and Wizz Air for almost 1,400. British Airways and easyJet also experienced GPS interference, although on a smaller scale (82 and 4 respectively).

The United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority told The Sun that jamming is often linked to military activity, but that does not mean commercial aircraft are a direct target.