Poland and Germany identified source of GPS interference recorded over Baltic Sea since February 2022
Poland and Germany have identified the source of GPS interference recorded almost daily in the Baltic Sea since February 2022. It is the Kaliningrad Oblast of the aggressor country of russia, or rather, the electronic warfare (EW) units deployed in the region.
This was reported by Defense News with reference to researchers from the Maritime University of Gdynia and the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
Interference in the global navigation satellite system has become an everyday occurrence in northeastern Europe after the start of russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The interference manifests itself in the form of jamming, i.e. blocking the signal, as well as spoofing - distortion of location data.
The Maritime University of Gdynia said that in 2025, most of the cases of spoofing were recorded.
Since February 2022, GPS interference has been recorded in the area from the Polish airport of Gdansk to the airspace of Estonia and Finland. Several times, these interferences have led to the cancellation of flights and the closure of airports. Commercial vessels have also repeatedly gone off course due to problems with GPS.
Дослідники з Польщі та Німеччини встановили, що джерелом перешкод є кілька об’єктів на території Калінінградської області.
Researchers from Poland and Germany have established that the source of interference is several objects in the Kaliningrad Oblast.
One of them is the Okunevo antenna complex on the Baltic Sea coast. In addition to stationary antenna installations, electronic warfare units of the russian army were previously deployed in this area.
Satellite images from 2018 show that the GT-01 Murmansk-BN system was located on the territory of the antenna complex. This is a short-wave coastal electronic warfare complex capable of jamming GPS systems at ranges of up to 5 thousand kilometers.
In addition, the GPS signal was suppressed from the outskirts of the city of Baltiysk. The russian Baltic Fleet is based in its port, and an electronic warfare complex is located next to it.
Defense News writes that russia has not officially commented on what is happening. At the same time, eight countries of the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) have filed a complaint with the UN.
In addition, Poland, Germany, Finland and a number of other countries have begun work on deploying the R-Mode Baltic navigation system. It is based on coastal radio beacons and does not depend on the operation of satellites. It is expected to start operating in 2026.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in May of this year, Latvia announced that the number of GPS jammers in the country's airspace had doubled from January to April.
Recall, in April 2024, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia accused russia of deliberately creating GPS interference, which could lead to a plane crash.