Baltic states seek to fight back against Russian signal jamming

NATO’s easternmost member states are grappling with a sharp rise in radio and satellite interference, with Baltic governments accusing Russia of positioning equipment for electronic warfare close to their borders.

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Baltic Sea region has registered widespread signal jamming, including of the Global Positioning System or GPS, which has affected air and maritime communications.

But authorities in the Baltic states say it’s significantly escalated in recent months, with the Estonian regulator saying that 85% of flights in the country now experience disruption. They’ve also reported a rapid increase in intentional transmission of faulty coordinates, a practice known as spoofing.

Lithuania last month accused Russia of orchestrating a spike in GPS jamming, causing a 22-fold increase in such incidents since the previous year.

At stake isn’t only the safety of civilian transport but the security of a region that’s become a flashpoint for NATO in its standoff with the Kremlin. The jamming amounts to a challenge to the military alliance over how to respond, according to Jacek Tarocinski, a research fellow at the state-funded Center for Eastern Studies in Warsaw.

“Russia is continuously testing NATO, probing both our military and political responses,” Tarocinski said. It’s part of an effort “to exploit divisions among allies and undermine the cohesion of the alliance.”

Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — the Baltic members of the alliance that border Russia and have been among its most vocal supporters of Kyiv — have escalated their complaints to international organizations as Moscow has flexed its electronic-warfare capabilities.

Together with neighboring Finland, they flagged worsening radio-navigation interference to the International Telecommunications Union, or ITU, according to a letter addressed to the communications watchdog on June 23 and seen by Bloomberg News.

The same governments, along with Sweden and Poland, also expressed concern about Russian electronic warfare in a letter to the International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO in early July. They submitted data on disruptions, on the basis of which the aviation watchdog concluded that Russia was the source of the interference.

In the letter, also seen by Bloomberg News, the ICAO expressed “grave concern” over flight safety, saying that unless Russia outlined the measures it would take to cease the disruption within 30 days, the matter would be considered a potential violation of international law. Similarly, the ITU’s board told Russia to immediately halt the interference.

Lithuania’s communications ministry told Bloomberg that it’s unaware of an official Russian response to the letter from the ICAO Council’s president and the disruptions continue.

A state that violates ITU regulations may be suspended from issuance of new permits for the use of radio frequencies and their protection, according to its constitution. ICAO and ITU are agencies of the United Nations.

The Russian administration “didn’t deny” its jamming activity at the recent ITU meeting, “but justified its actions by the need to protect national infrastructure,” the Lithuanian communication authority said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Baltic states and allies have taken steps to counteract the interference. In July, the bloc announced that its Galileo global navigation satellite launched a new capability to counteract signal spoofing, responding to the situation in sensitive areas including the Baltic Sea.

However, the disruption is expanding further inland and to ground level, according to the letter to the ITU, adding that the frequency bands used by mobile phones have also been affected.

“At first it used to affect aviation, now interference is also affecting the sea, shipping and ground communication towers,” Jurate Soviene, the chair of Lithuania’s communications authority, said in an interview.

Baltic officials have warned civilians not to fly drones near the countries’ borders with Russia amid a spike in spoofed GPS coordinates.

“If the thing falls down from a few hundred meters in an unsuitable location, it can hit someone on the head or fall on someone’s car,” Estonian Interior Minister Igor Taro said last month. He put the broader cost of such disruption to government at €500,000 ($582,000).

Although authorities across the region say commercial flights continue to be safe, pilots increasingly have to switch to alternative navigation methods.

The Polish Air Navigation Services Agency or PANSA told Bloomberg in an emailed statement that the disruptions “significantly increase” air traffic control’s workload, since pilots must turn to radar assistance due to GPS disruption.

PANSA said the interference was particularly pronounced in north-eastern Poland, near the border with Lithuania. That area includes the Suwalki Gap, the borderland that ranges less than 100 kilometers (62 miles), wedged between Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad, surrounded by NATO nations, is widely believed to be the focal point of Russia’s electronic warfare efforts.

In their letter to the ITU, Lithuanian officials identified four locations in the exclave where they believe Russia has installed additional jamming equipment.

But the governments of Estonia and Latvia, neither of which border Kaliningrad, say they’re also affected by signals interference from mainland Russia.

In July, Estonian officials said that the Russian military had moved additional devices to a town near the country’s border. Authorities in Riga also believe that Moscow has moved equipment to its Pskov region which borders Latvia, the public broadcaster reported in August, citing officials.

Some electronic warfare devices could also be deployed on naval vessels in the Baltic Sea, officials from the Baltic states said.