Ursula von der Leyen’s plane hit by suspected Russian GPS interference

A suspected Russian interference attack targeting Ursula von der Leyen disabled GPS navigation services at a Bulgarian airport and forced the European Commission president’s plane to land using paper maps.

A jet carrying von der Leyen to Plovdiv on Sunday afternoon was deprived of GPS navigational aids while on approach to the city’s airport, in what three officials briefed on the incident said was being treated as a Russian interference operation.

“The whole airport area GPS went dark,” said one of the officials. After circling the airport for an hour, the plane’s pilot took the decision to land the plane, using alternative electronic aids and paper maps, they added. “It was undeniable interference.”

Subsequently, flight recordings showed the pilots reported a GPS issue at 17.10 local time as they approached the airport. The plane then made several turns and landed 23 minutes later.

The Bulgarian Air Traffic Services Authority confirmed the incident in a statement to the Financial Times.

“Since February 2022, there has been a notable increase in [GPS] jamming and recently spoofing occurrences,” it said. “These interferences disrupt the accurate reception of [GPS] signals, leading to various operational challenges for aircraft and ground systems.”

The European Commission later confirmed the incident. “There was GPS jamming but the plane landed safely in Bulgaria,” a spokesperson said.

“We have received info from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia.

“We are of course aware and used to the threats and intimidation that are a regular component of Russia’s hostile behaviour,” the spokesperson added.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the FT that “your information is incorrect”.

Other aircraft in the area appear to have been able to ascertain and report their positions without issue, according to online flight trackers, giving weight to the suspicion that the jamming of von der Leyen’s aircraft was a narrowly focused effort.

But some analysts have suggested von der Leyen’s plane was more likely affected by broader GPS jamming, rather than singled out in a specific attack.

So-called GPS jamming and spoofing, which distorts or prevents access to the satellite-based navigation system, was traditionally deployed by military and intelligence services to defend sensitive sites but has increasingly been used by countries such as Russia as a means of disrupting civilian life.

EU governments have warned that rising GPS jamming blamed on Russia risks causing an air disaster by essentially blinding commercial aircraft mid-journey.

GPS jamming incidents have risen significantly in the Baltic Sea and eastern European states close to Russia in recent years, affecting planes, boats and civilians who use the service for day-to-day navigation.

“Generally we have been seeing quite a lot of such jamming and spoofing activities, especially on the eastern flank,” the commission spokesperson said. “Europe is the most affected region globally on this.”

Thirteen member states wrote to the commission earlier this year to raise the issue, they said.

The head of the German armed forces, Carsten Breuer, said on Monday he had also experienced two similar cases of GPS interference — once when flying in military aircraft over the Baltic Sea and on another occasion while observing an exercise in Lithuania.

In the second case, a Russian reconnaissance aircraft was in nearby airspace over Belarus. A person familiar with the incidents, both in 2024, said it was not possible to say whether Breuer had been personally targeted.

Breuer said Russia was using such tactics to “test” Nato member states and their reactions. 

Von der Leyen was flying from Warsaw to the central Bulgarian city of Plovdiv to meet the country’s prime minister, Rosen Zhelyazkov, and tour an ammunition factory when the incident took place.

She was on a tour of the EU’s frontline states to discuss efforts to improve the bloc’s defence readiness in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

“[Russian president Vladimir] Putin has not changed, and he will not change,” von der Leyen told reporters while on the ground in Bulgaria on Sunday. “He is a predator. He can only be kept in check through strong deterrence.”

Bulgaria has been one of the most important European suppliers of military equipment to Ukraine, initially of legacy Soviet-era weaponry in the opening months of the war, and now of artillery and other products produced by the country’s large defence industry.

Von der Leyen left Plovdiv on the same plane without incident after the visit.

Additional reporting by Alice Hancock in Brussels, Laura Pitel in Berlin and Chris Cook in London

This article has been updated to add clarifications since first publication, including on the delay in landing.