{"id":4275,"date":"2018-11-12T15:53:53","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T15:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/russia-suspected-of-jamming-gps-signal-in-finland\/"},"modified":"2018-11-12T15:53:53","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T15:53:53","slug":"russia-suspected-of-jamming-gps-signal-in-finland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/russia-suspected-of-jamming-gps-signal-in-finland\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia suspected of jamming GPS signal in Finland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Media playback is unsupported on your device<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>

Media caption<\/span>Nato holds biggest military exercise since Cold War<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Finland is not a Nato member but joined the war games which began last month.<\/p>\n

Norway also reported GPS problems during the exercises near Russia’s north-western borders.<\/p>\n

“It is difficult to say what the reasons could be but there are reasons to believe it could be related to military exercise activities<\/a> outside Norway’s borders,” Wenche Olsen, director of the Civil Aviation Authority of Norway, told the Barents Observer earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Russia is also suspected of jamming the GPS signal in Norway’s border area last year when it held its own war games.<\/p>\n

Relations between Nato and Russia have been strained since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.<\/p>\n

How serious was the disruption?<\/h2>\n

The Finnish region of Lapland and northern parts of Norway close to the Russian border were affected<\/a>, with the Norwegian regional airline Wider\u00f8e confirming its pilots had experienced GPS disruption, Germany’s DW news site reports.<\/p>\n

However, the airline pointed out that pilots aboard civilian aircraft had other options when a GPS signal failed.<\/p>\n

“This is not a joke, it threatened the air security of ordinary people,” said Mr Sipila, who is himself an experienced pilot.<\/p>\n

“It is possible that Russia has been the disrupting party in this. Russia is known to possess such capabilities.”<\/p>\n

How could Russia block the signal?<\/h2>\n

GPS is a global navigation system originally devised by the US military which works by sending signals from satellites above the Earth back down to receivers.<\/p>\n

“Technology-wise, it’s relatively easy to disturb a radio signal, and it’s possible that Russia was behind it,” Mr Sipila was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n

Russia’s electronic warfare capability has impressed many Nato commanders<\/a>, the BBC’s Jonathan Marcus wrote last year.<\/p>\n