The Baltic states are becoming a training ground for hybrid warfare, experts believe. Russia is increasingly creating problems for the navigation of aircraft and ships by jamming the GPS signal. How dangerous is this?
In 2025, incidents of satellite navigation interference, including jamming and replacing the GPS signal from the territory of Russia, sharply increased in the Baltic states. This is confirmed by the authorities in Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, where thousands of flights are facing disruptions in navigation. An interactive map has even been created to track these jammers.
In October, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) confirmed that the jammers were artificial and pointed to Russia as their source. In its resolution, the organization identified this practice of the Russian authorities as a factor destabilizing navigation in European airspace and demanded its immediate cessation. Russian GPS jamming systems can be located in Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg, Smolensk and Rostov. These actions by Russia in the region have intensified significantly since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, Moscow continues to deny and officially rejects all accusations.
Meanwhile, for the affected airlines, which must continue to operate, these signal jammers have become the "new normal". Pilots and experts tell DW how this affects their work and what are the ways to counteract it.
How interference affects flights
Problems with the GPS signal are now commonplace. "Six or seven years ago, these cases were very rare. Now it is already a daily operational risk that we take very seriously", says airBaltic airline pilot, commander of the "Airbus" A220 Yannis Kristops. The problems for aviation look like this: the aircraft's equipment may display coordinates incorrectly, and some systems may not work.
However, modern aircraft are manufactured with a high degree of system reliability, he reassures: "All commercial aircraft have different systems, and one can replace one of the others if necessary". Pilot training also includes the risks of a navigation system malfunction.
"In 2008, I started flying an Embraer 50 as a co-pilot. Back then, many aircraft were not yet equipped with satellite navigation systems, but we flew safely. Now, commercial aviation also has aircraft without satellite navigation systems, which does not prevent them from flying safely," adds Christops. However, in at least one case, a passenger plane was in danger of crashing as a result of artificial GPS interference. This happened in 2019 in the USA, but the tragedy was averted thanks to the adequate intervention of the radar dispatcher on duty.
The interference is artificial
"This interference is not caused by ordinary equipment - it is military equipment that creates broadband interference", explains Imants Viskers, Head of the Technical Service Department at Latvian Air Transport. He explains that GPS interference can also be natural, for example, in the ionosphere, but in the case of the Baltic states it has a massive impact on satellite navigation. Latvian Air Transport data shows an increase in GPS interference in the sky over the country by 2.5 times. If 820 incidents were registered for the whole of last year, then for the first eight months of 2025 alone there were 969.
Viskers assures that despite these disruptions, air transport remains safe: in Latvia and other countries, backup systems and redundant technologies are used, including VOR, DME, radio beacons and instrument landing procedures. "Technologies are duplicated at three levels and the controller knows exactly how to act in the event of equipment failure, how to communicate with the airline and the pilot. But these disruptions create additional stress for the crews and controllers," he points out.
One of the most powerful hotbeds of GPS interference is in the Kaliningrad region, observers say. Defense News has even identified specific locations there, using "data from Polish scientists". The military publication writes that these locations were found using triangulation (determining the location of an object by measuring the angles from two known points to it - ed.) of signal sources and satellite images. Several specific locations have been identified in the Kaliningrad region - for example, a group of trucks with powerful 32-meter antennas of the GT-01 "Murmansk-BN" series was identified. They can suppress communication systems within a radius of 5,000 to 8,000 kilometers.
Why is Russia causing problems in the Baltic region?
Some European politicians and NATO military officials are convinced that GPS jamming is part of Russia's hybrid war against the North Atlantic Alliance. It is a way of exerting pressure that cannot be qualified as an act of war, but it undermines the security of civilian infrastructure. "There is no immediate threat. We must be vigilant and check every day that everything is in order," said Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, at the recent security conference in Riga. "Support your government, have confidence in the armed forces and NATO. We are here and we will protect you," he assured.
There is also an opinion that there may be a pragmatic reason for the jamming - if Russia's goal is to create difficulties for Ukrainian drones that need precise satellite guidance. In this case, the operator must switch to less precise modes or cancel the mission, which reduces the accuracy of strikes and complicates long-range autonomous operations.
Military expert Ruslan Leviev sees a correlation between the power of Russian jammers and the increased frequency of strikes by Ukrainian drones. It is obvious that the scale of the GPS signal jamming activity goes beyond the radius of Russian oil refineries, which remain the main target of Ukrainian drones, Leviev told the publication "Mediazona".