Russia is capable of spoofing GPS signals deep inside Europe within a radius of up to 450 kilometers from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad thanks to significantly increased capacity in this sector, Lithuanian official Dariusz Kulieszius said today, quoted by Reuters, BTA reports.
Since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, European countries have often accused Moscow of electronic interference, but President Vladimir Putin's government denies the accusations and calls them Western smear tactics.
Kuliejus, who is deputy head of the state communications regulator, said that Russia has increased from 3 at the beginning of last year to 36 now its antennas in the enclave for cyberattack - the so-called spoofing, broadcasting false signals to confuse foreign positioning systems.
According to him, the antennas are certainly located in the heavily militarized territory of the Kaliningrad region, which is located between NATO member states Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic Sea coast.
„The sporadic disturbances began since the NATO summit in Vilnius in 2023. "Now the Russians have expanded their infrastructure and the disruptions are turning into systematic, constant, endless Russian provocations against European security," Kulieshus noted.
The Russian Embassy in Lithuania has not yet responded to a request for comment on the Lithuanian representative's statement, Reuters reports.
According to a map from the Lithuanian Communications Regulatory Authority, Russian disruptions to the GPS system could cover Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, most of Poland and parts of Finland, Sweden and Belarus, as well as the Baltic Sea. However, Kulieshus did not specify how this range was measured, Reuters notes.
The UK yesterday accused Russia of jamming the GPS signal of the government plane in which British Defense Minister John Healy flew near the Russian border.
Last year, a Spanish military plane carrying Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles experienced GPS interference near Kaliningrad, and the plane of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was jammed on its way to Bulgaria, Reuters recalls.
Estonia and neighboring Finland also accuse Russia of jamming the GPS signal in the airspace of the region.
However, most modern planes and large airports have a number of navigation tools if there are problems with the GPS, Reuters emphasizes.
Kulieshus added that the quality of the signal of mobile networks near to Kaliningrad is worsened by interference affecting some frequencies, most noticeably during Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia.