BRUSSELS — A plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was hit by GPS interference on Sunday, with Russia suspected of being behind the attack.
“We can confirm there was GPS jamming but the plane landed safe,” Arianna Podestà, deputy spokesperson of the Commission, said in a statement shared with POLITICO.
Von der Leyen is on a tour visiting “frontline states” Latvia, Finland, Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania, in an effort to underscore the European Union’s commitment to ramping up its defense and security capabilities.
She arrived in Bulgaria on Sunday, where she visited an arms producer in Sopot, accompanied by Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov.
The jet, which was chartered by the European Commission for the trip, was unable to use electronic navigational aids as a result of the interference while approaching the airport at Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second-largest city.
“In order to ensure the safety of the flight, Air Traffic Services immediately proposed an alternative landing approach using ground-based navigation aids (Instrument Landing System). The ground-based navigation aids used in Bulgaria are independent of GPS systems and allow safe and reliable landings,” a press release from the Bulgarian government said.
“We further clarify that there was no need to divert the flight,” it added.
Podestà said the Commission received information from Bulgarian authorities indicating that “they suspect this blatant interference was carried out by Russia.”
“This incident underlines the urgency of the President’s current trip to frontline Member States, where she has seen firsthand the everyday threats from Russia and its proxies,” she said.
GPS jamming and spoofing prevent aircraft from accessing navigation systems such as U.S. GPS or European Galileo, or distort the location data they receive, and are increasingly being deployed as a means to disturb civilian or military operations.
European governments have warned about this form of deliberate interference, stating that it has been occurring in the Baltic Sea region since 2022, and have demanded that the European Commission take action against Russia and Belarus.
Mathieu Pollet contributed to this report.
This article has been updated with a statement from the Bulgarian government.
The post Von der Leyen’s plane hit by suspected Russian GPS jamming appeared first on Politico.
