Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila has said the GPS signal in his country’s northern airspace was disrupted during recent Nato war games in Scandinavia.
He said he believed the signal had been jammed deliberately and that it was possible Russia was to blame because it had the means to do so.
Finland is not a Nato member but joined the war games which began last month. Norway also reported GPS problems during the exercises near Russia’s north-western borders.
“It is difficult to say what the reasons could be but there are reasons to believe it could be related to military exercise activities outside Norway’s borders,” Wenche Olsen, director of the Civil Aviation Authority of Norway, told the Barents Observer earlier this month.
Russia is also suspected of jamming the GPS signal in Norway’s border area last year when it held its own war games. Relations between Nato and Russia have been strained since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
The Finnish region of Lapland and northern parts of Norway close to the Russian border were affected, with the Norwegian regional airline Widerøe confirming its pilots had experienced GPS disruption, Germany’s DW news site reports. However, the airline pointed out that pilots aboard civilian aircraft had other options when a GPS signal failed.
“This is not a joke, it threatened the air security of ordinary people,” said Mr Sipila, who is himself an experienced pilot. “It is possible that Russia has been the disrupting party in this. Russia is known to possess such capabilities.”