While most of them appear to be taking place in Polish airspace, OSINT blogs have reported that planes flying in German, Danish, Swedish, Latvian and Lithuanian airspace have suffered interference problems
Planes flying over and around the Baltic Sea in northern Europe have been suffering technical problems caused by jamming since Sunday, with 1614 planes, mostly civilian, reporting problems since then.
While most of them appear to be taking place in Polish airspace, OSINT blogs have reported that planes flying in German, Danish, Swedish, Latvian and Lithuanian airspace have suffered interference problems.
Notably, little to no interference appears to be taking place in Belarus, a staunch Russian ally, or Kaliningrad, the Russian province separated from the mainland by sea and land.
The planes appear to be suffering from GPS jamming, which can confuse pilots as this can make them believe they are in a different location than they actually are.
Newsweek reported that the uptick in interference can largely be attributed to the Kaliningrad region, where Russia is believed to have significant resources for the use of electronic warfare.
A Lithuanian defence source told the outlet: 'Russian armed forces have a wide spectrum of military equipment dedicated for GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) interference, including jamming and spoofing, at varying distances, duration and intensity.'
A leading military expert said that Russia's dominance in the electronics war should be a 'wake-up call' for the UK's military.
Dr Melanie Garson, associate professor of International Security at University College London, told Forces.net: 'Russia particularly has previously had an edge on this and they have necessity.
'The mother of invention over the last two years during the war have actually actively solidified their capabilities in this regard.
'They've had the chance to use it more concretely and there's a real concern that, particularly Nato, currently doesn't match that capability.'
Comment: Indeed, Russia does appear to be at the forefront of electronic warfare technologies, and it may be that this is a reasonable warning from Russia to the West of what it's capable of; what with the West escalating belligerence on its border with NATO wargames; inside Ukraine with thousands of foreign mercenaries; and even in Russia proper with the 100+ sabotage incidents, and the Crocus terrorist attack.
However it's quite unlike Russia to target civilians in such a way, which are allegedly the primary focus of these jam-attacks. Covert psywarfare against civilians is much more the realm of the Western establishment.
Other than the largely biased speculation above, there's no hard evidence that Russia is indeed doing this. There's also no reason to believe that Russia would resort to this when it has other ways to send warnings to the West. So, for now, it seems that more data is required.
However, it probably would be less worrisome if Russia was responsible because it doesn't have a track record of false flag terror attacks on civilians like other nations. It's possible that other state actors are responsible, and that this GPS jamming is a warning, similar to the US & UK embassy warnings that occurred prior to the terrorist attacks in Moscow; attacks that, it's becoming clear, the US and UK were likely responsible for organising.
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