Russia is suspected of jamming navigation on EU leader’s plane above
Bulgaria, official says
[September 02, 2025]
By SAM McNEIL and VALENTINA PETROVA
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — A plane carrying European Commission President
Ursula von der Leyen was hit by GPS jamming over Bulgaria in a suspected
Russian operation, a spokesperson said Monday.
The plane landed safely at Plovdiv airport in central Bulgaria and von
der Leyen will continue her planned tour of the European Union’s eastern
frontline nations, said commission spokesperson Arianna Podestà.
“We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming,” said Podestà. “We
have received information from the Bulgarian authority that they suspect
that this was due to blatant interference by Russia.”
The incident with von der Leyen’s plane is the latest in a series
involving suspected Russian electronic interference with GPS satellite
navigation. For months, countries bordering Russia — including Finland,
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — have warned of increased electronic
activity interfering with flights, ships and drones. Russian authorities
did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Von der Leyen, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and
Moscow’s war in Ukraine, is on a four-day tour of much of the EU's
eastern flank, with stops in Lithuania, Finland, Estonia, Latvia,
Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria.
“This incident actually underlines the urgency of the mission that the
president is carrying out in the front-line member states," Podestà
said.
She said that von der Leyen has seen "firsthand the everyday challenges
of threats coming from Russia and its proxies.”
“And, of course, the EU will continue to invest into defense spending
and in Europe’s readiness even more after this incident,” she said.
Bulgaria issued a statement saying that “the satellite signal used for
the aircraft’s GPS navigation was disrupted" during von der Leyen's
flight. She was traveling from Warsaw, Poland, to Plovdiv, Bulgaria's
second-largest city, on a private jet chartered by the European
Commission. "As the aircraft approached Plovdiv Airport, the GPS signal
was lost,” the statement said. It said that Bulgaria's Civil Aviation
Authority instructed the pilots to use backup navigation aids to land
the plane.
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President of European Commission Ursula von der Leyen speaks during
a joint press conference with Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda
at the Border Guard School near Lithuanian-Belarusian border, near
the village Medininkai, east of the capital Vilnius, Lithuania,
Monday, Sept. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
The Associated Press has plotted almost 80 incidents on a map tracking a
campaign of disruption across Europe blamed on Russia, which the head of
Britain’s foreign intelligence service has described as staggeringly
“reckless.” Since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022,
Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens
of attacks and other incidents, ranging from vandalism to arson and
attempted assassination.
The interference from Russia includes jamming and spoofing. Jamming
means a strong radio signal overwhelms communications, whereas spoofing
misleads a receiver into thinking it is in a different location or in a
past or future time period.
In August, Latvia’s Electronic Communications Office said it had
identified at least three hot spots for jamming along borders with
Russia. In April 2024, a Finnish airline temporarily suspended flights
to the Estonian city of Tartu following jamming, while in March that
year, a plane carrying the British defense secretary had its satellite
signal jammed as it flew near Russian territory.
The office said that although Russia maintains the jamming is defensive,
the frequency has increased as interference extends further from
Russia’s borders.
Pilots and air traffic controllers from Sweden to Bulgaria are “are
reinventing the old-school methods of navigating because they cannot
rely on GPS anymore,” said Eric Schouten, an intelligence analyst and
CEO of Dyami Security Intelligence based in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
___
McNeil reported from Brussels. Writers Emma Burrows in London and Zeke
Miller in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
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