Suspected Russian GPS jamming forces EU chief’s flight to land using paper charts
global.espreso.tv
Mon, 01 Sep 2025 16:17:00 +0300

According to the Financial Times, the aircraft carrying von der Leyen on August 31 lost electronic navigation systems while approaching Plovdiv airport. Three officials cited in the report suspect the incident may have been a Russian interference operation.One source told the outlet that the GPS across the entire airport zone stopped working. Following this, the plane reportedly circled the airport for an hour before the pilot decided to land manually using paper charts.The source emphasized that this was unequivocal interference.The Bulgarian Air Traffic Management Service later confirmed the report to FT.The agency explained in a statement that Since February 2022, there has been a noticeable increase in GPS jamming and, more recently, signal spoofing. These disruptions affect accurate GPS reception, causing operational problems for aircraft and ground systems-Meanwhile, Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told FT that its information was "incorrect."European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has stated that Europe has a "pretty precise plan" for the potential deployment of troops to Ukraine as part of post-war security guarantees.
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