- This story is developing, more to follow
Russia is feared to have hit a Spanish Air Force plane with a GPS attack, after a flight carrying Spain‘s defence minister suffered an electronic ‘disturbance’.
The attack is believed to have happened this morning after the Spanish Airbus A330 carrying top minister Margarita Robles flew over the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on its way to Lithuania.
Robles was due to meet with her Lithuanian counterpart Dovile Sakaliene at the Siauliai airbase in the north of the country on Wednesday morning, according to the Spanish government’s agenda.
Several relatives of Spanish airmen serving in the new NATO air defence mission on the border with Russia were onboard with Robles.
It comes amid heightened tension with Russia, which has been accused of aggressively testing NATO’s responses to threats.
Yesterday, Danish officials hinted that Russia may have been behind a swarm of drones that left Copenhagen airport incapacitated, disrupting around 100 flights and leaving 20,000 passengers stranded.
Danish intelligence has now said the NATO member is facing a ‘high threat of sabotage’ after the incident.
‘We are facing a high threat of sabotage in Denmark. Someone may not necessarily want to attack us, but rather stress us out and see how we react,’ Flemming Drejer, Director of Operations at Denmark’s intelligence service PET, told a press conference.
Russia is feared to have hit a Spanish Air Force plane with a GPS attack, after a flight carrying Spain ‘s defence minister suffered an electronic ‘disturbance’ (File image of a Spanish Air Force plane)
The attack is believed to have happened this morning after the plane carrying top minister Margarita Robles flew over Russian enclave Kaliningrad
The latest threat to Europe comes just weeks after Russia was suspected of jamming a jet carrying European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen to Bulgaria.
The plane carrying the EU chief was forced to land at Plovdiv, Bulgaria, using only paper maps, when a surprise interference attack suddenly disabled the GPS navigation system.
The incident was likely the result of a ‘blatant’ Russian sabotage operation, Bulgarian authorities told the European Commission.
‘We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming, but the plane landed safely in Bulgaria,’ European Commission spokeswoman Arianna Podesta said.
‘We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia.’
‘The whole airport area GPS went dark,’ an official brief on the incident told the Financial Times.
GPS ‘jamming’ or ‘spoofing’, which disrupts access to the satellite-based navigation system, is a tactic Russia has previously used to wreak havoc with civilian life.
The technique has historically been employed by military and intelligence services to protect sensitive locations.
More to follow.
