The president of the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, suffered a serious technical problem Last Sunday while approaching the Plovdiv airport, the second largest city in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian government points to a deliberate electronic attack from Russia.
In an effort to underline the commitment of the European Union of reinforce your defense and security capabilitiesUrsula von der Leyen was touring the calls «First line» states. Latvia, Finland, Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania, the most threatened by the invasion of Russia to Ukraine.
The plane, chartered by the European Commission for the trip, could not use electronic navigation aids In the approach to Plovdiv airport, where I was going to visit a weapon producer in Sopot, accompanied by Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov. The air traffic service proposed an alternative landing approach using land navigation aid, the oldest instrumental landing systems, but that operate independently to GPS assistance.
What happened to the president of the European Commission president
The plane landed without major novelty, but it is a notice to navigators considering that most analysts consider that it was “A Russian attack”. The spokeswoman of the European Commission says it received information from the Bulgarian authorities indicating that “They suspect that this flagrant interference was carried out by Russia”.
For what is known until now, the most likely theory is that of a interference and supplantation of GPS . This implies the transmission of radio waves on the same frequencies that GPS satellites use. Since these satellites are about 20,000 km on the earth, the signals they send are quite weak. An earth transmitter can saturate GPS information. It is also possible to falsify satellite information to divert attention from those who depend on their data for navigation.
The result is that aircraft They cannot access navigation systems such as the American GPS or the European Galileo or the information with the location data they receive are distorted. This type of attack is increasingly used as a means to disturb civil or military operations. European governments They have already warned On this form of deliberate interference, stating that it is taking place in the Baltic Sea region since 2022, and have demanded that the European Commission take measures against Russia and Belarus.
The Commissioner for Defense and Space of the European Union (EASA), Andrius Kubilius, used his X account for lament The incident. «Interferences and identity impersonation harm our air, maritime and transport economies ”he wrote, adding that the block “Satellites will increase in low terrestrial orbit for greater robustness and improve interference detection”.
The case, even if it will be out of accidents or injured, It is the greatest gravity. The falsification of signs of navigation satellites is directly framed in the concept of ‘electronic war’ that Russia is already practicing against Ukraine. He even leaves the door open to worrying questions: “Can a European army trust GPS to guide drones or missiles at this time?”.
