The investigation of the powerful A GPS jammer, discovered by the National Security Agency and the Ministry of Interior in the capital's "Dragalevtsi" neighborhood, has raised serious questions in the public sphere about national security and flight safety. The revelations from the last hours of August 25, 2026 show that the device worked for at least a year and had the capacity to jam signals within a radius of up to 10 kilometers, affecting overflying aircraft and Sofia Airport.
This time window and the enormous power of the technique inevitably lead to hypothetical logical connection with one of the most serious aviation incidents in our country in recent times – the mysterious loss of GPS signal from the plane of the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen upon her landing in Bulgaria in September 2025.
Chronology of the facts: What unites the two cases
Although official institutions have not yet announced a direct causal relationship, the comparison of the facts outlines interesting coincidences in the context of airspace security.
Period of action: At a press conference earlier today, Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev announced that the jamming equipment in “Dragalevtsi“ has been functioning for a long time. According to statements by MP Ivaylo Mirchev on the evening of August 25, 2026, the device was purchased by a Bulgarian company back in 2022. This period fully covers September 2025, when the incident with the EC plane occurred. Scope of impact: Initially, the device was believed to be a local weapon against drones within the boundaries of the guarded complex in Sofia. However, experts from the Communications Regulatory Commission (CRC) and former director of the Bulgarian Civil Aviation Authority Georgi Peev confirmed that when activated, the equipment emitted with military power. It actually jammed the GPS coordinates of passing aircraft and disrupted the operation of Sofia Airport. The Ursula von der Leyen incident: Upon the arrival of the EC President in September 2025 for a visit to Plovdiv and Sopot, the pilots reported a sudden complete disappearance of the satellite signal, which necessitated switching to emergency mode.
The critical location over Thrace
At the time of the complete disappearance of the satellite navigation signal, Ursula von der Leyen's plane was in the airspace of Southern Bulgaria, in the descent and landing approach phase towards the city of Plovdiv. The disturbances were detected in the Thracian Lowland region while the aircraft was following its standard route.
Despite the serious GPS navigation failure, which tested the crew, the aircraft was not diverted to other airports and landed successfully at Plovdiv Airport. For the landing, the pilots used an alternative approach using traditional ground-based radio navigation aids of the Air Traffic Control and physical paper maps for visual reference. The government then explained the incident with massive radio-electronic warfare by the Russian Federation in the Black Sea region. Disclosures in international publications such as Financial Times also supported this thesis. However, the new case in Sofia introduces additional hypotheses.
Precedent in Bulgarian security and the network in Southern Bulgaria
The case in „Dragalevtsi“ is the first publicly known case in Bulgaria in which such a powerful GPS jamming device was physically found on private property. The institutions have never before confiscated such a device with such a huge scope from the hands of the local underground.
The context surrounding this region reveals a broader picture. In parallel with the searches in “Dragalevtsi“, the teams of the Ministry of Interior and the National Security Agency expanded the operation and searched properties in the border village of Kapitan Andreevo, from where technical devices were also seized. This shows that the network or logistics for such equipment has branches along key transport arteries in Southern Bulgaria, geographically coinciding with the access corridors to Plovdiv and Sofia.
International hybrid attack or local underground shield?
The logical connection between the two events branches into two main hypotheses. The first is that the powerful equipment in “Dragalevtsi“ – unofficially associated with underground figures such as Razmig Chakaryan – Ami and Hristoforos Amanatidis – Taki – was used for private purposes (protection from tracking or drones). Due to its enormous power, it "polluted" airwaves over all of Western and Central Bulgaria, becoming a side factor in the passage of government flights.
The second, more serious hypothesis considers the use of such equipment in sync with broader hybrid operations. Analysts recall similar investigations by the BIRN network from July 2026 into coordinated GPS jamming in the Balkans, which often coincides with geopolitical events. While the Air Force reports drastic and constant increase in GPS interference over the Black Sea and Eastern Bulgaria since February 2022 due to Russian electronic warfare (EW) systems, the physical capture of the equipment in Sofia proves that the threat now also has an internal, local address.
The Council of Ministers and the National Security Agency emphasize that the investigation into the “Dragalevtsi“ case continues in full force, with computer-technical examinations of the seized jeep and the partially disassembled elements of the transmitter currently being conducted. Whether the local jammer is part of the puzzle surrounding the European leader's interrupted signal is yet to be clarified by the security services.