It has been reported that the reported jamming of Global Positioning System (GPS) signals in Finland, a new member of NATO, is likely to have originated from Russia, with one theory suggesting that it originated from the country’s westernmost territory. It is suggested that it was done.
The Finnish Transport and Communications Authority (Traficom) said over the weekend that it had detected a failure in navigation systems used by pilots and drivers in eastern and southeastern Europe, but that it did not pose a risk to air traffic.
Finnish media reported speculation rather than evidence about whether Moscow was to blame for the unrest, following heightened tensions between the two countries since Helsinki joined the alliance in April.
John Tis/Getty Images
Moscow has criticized Helsinki’s membership in the bloc and close military cooperation with the United States, and Finland has accused Russia of sending refugees to its borders and sparking a migrant crisis, a charge the Kremlin denies. There is.
Jukka Savolainen, network director at the Hybrid Competence Center, which investigates hybrid warfare, told Finnish news agency YLE that the unrest could be “deliberately caused or a byproduct” of Russian activity. Told.
“We believe it is very likely that it came from Russian systems,” he said, according to a translation.
Looks like we’ve found a location for Baltic Jammer. In Kaliningrad, Russia.
Since December 15, the aircraft has been experiencing intermittent navigational errors over the southern Baltic Sea.
Plotting the expected maximum disturbance range for each defect location, we see that one area stands out: Kaliningrad. pic.twitter.com/EgT6mcoZU4
— Markus Jonsson (@auonsson) January 3, 2024
Meanwhile, Markus Jonsson, an X user and author of open source intelligence, says: shared the map It is said to indicate the origin of the riot.
“I think I found the location of the Baltic jammer,” Jonsson wrote to his more than 10,000 followers, referring to the Russian enclave “in Kaliningrad, Russia.”
The post said aircraft have been experiencing navigation errors over the southern Baltic Sea since Dec. 15, and that “if you plot the maximum possible jamming distance for each bad position, you’ll see one area that stands out. .Kaliningrad.”
“The jammed aircraft have, on average, spatial similarities with Kaliningrad,” the follow-up post added.
The disruption over Finland was spotted on the GPSjam website, with administrator John Wiseman calling it “unprecedented” in terms of the number of aircraft and the size of the area affected.
Wiseman said newsweek Russia may be responsible for this incident, but there is still no solid evidence that Russia was involved.
He noted that the Russian Ministry of Defense announced on December 22 an exercise with “electronic warfare (EW) units of the Baltic Fleet” in the Kaliningrad region, days before a significant increase in sabotage around the Baltic Sea. He said that may be important.
“Another source of GPS interference is military testing and training, but if it were Finland, Poland, or NATO, it would be unusual for such a large area to be affected by significant interference without prior notice.” Wiseman said.
“It’s also probably within reach of Russian jammers, either on Kaliningrad or on ships in the Baltic Sea.”
Traficom previously reported newsweek It said that the data received regarding the interruption of GPS signals does not allow an analysis of its explanation.
French aviation safety official Benoît Roturier told Bloomberg in April 2022 that Moscow was behind the GPS jamming incident that affected planes over Finland, possibly to protect the military from GPS-guided missiles. He said it was a side effect of military equipment.
newsweek has contacted the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom, finding common ground and finding connections.