The ‘Baltic Beast’ is at it again. Mysterious – or not so mysterious – GPS signal disruption has become a growing problem for civilian air traffic, not just in the Baltic but also the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. It is clear that Russia is behind it, but why?
Airplanes have, while in flight, encountered signals designed to interfere with their GPS and other systems, whether by jamming them or spoofing, making them think they are somewhere else from their actual location. Last year, there were some 50 suspected attacks every week, but there were a full 350 in March and this month looks set to see a similar tally. Tracking the strength of the jamming signal has allowed its source to be located pretty accurately: in the Baltic it seems to be one of Russia’s ten Topol electronic warfare complexes, based in its Kaliningrad exclave.
This is more likely to be part of a generalised campaign to put pressure on Europe
Russia has a particular strength in electronic warfare (EW).
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