Putin IS behind GPS attacks on passenger flights over Europe: Baltic states and aviation experts pinpoint 'black hole' caused by secret electronic weapon

Russia is responsible for GPS jamming that has disrupted thousands of European flights and caused a Finnish air carrier to stop travel to Estonia, the country's Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna has declared.

Finnair announced on Monday it was suspending daily flights to Tartu after two of its planes were forced to turn back to Helsinki when their GPS signals were disrupted.  

The European Aviation Safety Agency warned back in January that authorities had seen a 'sharp rise' in jamming in recent months, particularly over the Baltic states, but did not specify the origin of the disruptions.

Then in March, an RAF plane carrying British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps had its signal jammed as it flew near the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad while returning to the UK from Poland.

At the time, military chiefs warned that a secretive Russian system known as Tobol, based in Kaliningrad, could be interfering with signals on planes and boats, causing them to 'malfunction'.

But now Estonian officials believe the most prominent source of the jamming around the Baltics is located in mainland Russia near St Petersburg.

'We have proof that it is coming from Russia, and Russia is violating all the international agreements,' Tsahkna said.

'I'm really sure that they know exactly what they're doing,' he added. 

Tsahkna told the BBC his nation had located three sites from which the GPS jamming has emanated - one close to St Petersburg, one in Kaliningrad, and another in Pskov near to the Estonian border.

Though the minister did not offer specifics, open-source investigators also concurred with his assessment, plotting a chart of flight paths of aircraft that had experienced jamming and working to find the intersection where the disruption to signals was most intense.

This method was corroborated by other analysts who performed dozens of drone flights and recorded the positions at which they suffered jamming. 

The data compiled from these investigations appears to show a GPS 'black hole' in a position south-west of St Petersburg where a number of Russian military bases are located, suggesting one or several of these bases are likely the primary source of the jamming attacks.

Jamming systems, such as the 'Tobol' platform believed to be in use in Kaliningrad, typically work by generating and then transmitting a signal on the same frequency used by aircraft or ships. 

This matched frequency overwhelms the GPS receiver aboard these crafts and confuses the navigation system. 

Instances of this kind of jamming in Europe have increased dramatically since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

Jamming GPS signals reduces the accuracy of various missiles and drones used by Ukraine - including Western-provided GMLRS rockets - helping Russian troops, military and civilian assets to evade Kyiv's attacks. 

Dr Thomas Withington from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank told the Telegraph earlier this year that these jamming devices are likely being used by Russia as a defensive tool.

But this has interfered significantly with civilian aircraft and maritime vessels. 

The Sun recently reported that some 46,000 flights logged satellite navigation issues over the Baltic region between August last year and March.

Among those were 2,309 Ryanair flights, 1,368 Wizz Air flights, 82 British Airways flights and four EasyJet flights.

Estonia's military chief Martin Harem said that the jamming does not exclusively apply to air traffic, as ships around Finland, the Baltics and Poland have also been affected by the jamming. 

'What we have seen is a malfunctioning of GPS for ships and air traffic,' General Harem, commander of the Estonian Defence Forces, told the Telegraph.

The extent to which civilian transports have been disrupted by Russian jamming around the Baltics has led some to question whether Moscow is deliberately targeting civilian aviation in Europe. 

'We really do not know if they [Russia] want to achieve something or just practice and test their equipment,' Harem said. 

Dr Jack Watling, a war expert at RUSI, told The Sun that Russia has 'long used GPS jamming as a harassment tool' and that the country is 'projecting it across NATO borders'.

'Wherever there is a large Russian garrison you are seeing GPS denial and there is one in Kaliningrad,' he said. 

'They just have that stuff switched on because there are standing orders.'

GPS disruption for civilian aircraft is not seen as a major threat, as most planes and airports have alternative navigation methods and do not rely on the technology.

However, Finnair was forced to turn its flights back to Helsinki because Tartu's airport exclusively employs GPS to bring planes in to land. 

And the practice can still prove extremely disruptive.

Justin Bronk, an expert on air power and aerial warfare at RUSI said that ongoing jamming attacks could force air carriers to dramatically change their flight plans.

'Given the busy airspace within which (civilian aircraft) are operating, lack of reliable GPS will significantly increase the separation distances required for safety,' he said - a move that would be 'enormously disruptive'.

Other experts warned that widespread GPS jamming of ships also increases the likelihood of collisions out at sea.

Dana Goward, president of the US-based Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, told the BBC: 'When we take the GPS out, clearly to some degree the efficiency and the safety of the aviation system is going to go down.

'People have to revert to old procedures that they're not quite so familiar with. There is going to be some harm, and we just hope it all stops before something bad happens.'