Russia continues to apply pressure in the Baltic Sea region.
Baltic ministers have warned that GPS jamming blamed on Russia risks causing an air disaster after the interference with navigation signals forced two Finnish flights to turn around mid-journey. The foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all warned separately at the weekend of the dangers of GPS jamming across the Baltic Sea region, which has increased in recent weeks.
On Thursday and Friday, two Finnair flights from Helsinki to the Estonian city of Tartu were forced by the GPS jamming to turn around and return to Finland as they were unable to navigate safely to their planned destination.
Lithuania’s foreign minister is quoted by the FT as saying that this has now become too dangerous to ignore.
These are not isolated incidents. Tens of thousands of flights are said to have been affected, and the activity seems to be based in several places, including Kaliningrad (Russia’s Baltic exclave), Pskov (a Russian air base near the southeastern Estonian border), and somewhere in the far north.
The FT quotes the head of flight operations at Finnair, who says that this jamming has been going on since 2022 (an interesting year for it to start) and that it is a nuisance but not dangerous (at least for now), so long as an airport has the right equipment, which Tartu does not. It is, of course, not hard to see this as harassment or a practice run for something else.
Meanwhile, via the BBC:
Two alleged spies suspected of planning to sabotage German military aid for Ukraine have been arrested in the southern German state of Bavaria.
The two men, described as dual German-Russian nationals, were detained in Bayreuth on suspicion of spying for Russia, prosecutors say.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said authorities had prevented “possible explosive attacks”.
The men are accused of scouting US military facilities and other sites.
And:
Two British men have been charged with helping Russian intelligence services after a suspected arson attack on a Ukraine-linked business in London. . . . Three other suspects linked to the fire have been held on other charges.
And AP (February 20):
Estonia’s domestic security agency said on Tuesday that it had apprehended 10 people suspected of sabotage and of spreading fear and creating tension within the Baltic country in a coordinated “hybrid operation” by Russia’s special services.
And Newsweek:
A fire broke out at a military plant in the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, on April 15, while in Monmouthshire, South Wales, an explosion occurred at a manufacturing plant of BAE Systems, the U.K.’s largest defense contractor, on April 17. Both facilities had been producing supplies for Kyiv’s forces in the war.
Coincidence?
It may be worth dusting off the definition of “gray-zone aggression,” a notion I mentioned in December:
A covert attack by unknown actors on a piece of (sometimes extraterritorial) infrastructure is a classic example of (to use the jargon) “gray zone” aggression, and a general promise of a military response is unlikely to be convincing enough to be a credible deterrent (the saboteurs will typically have long since left the scene).
As I asked back in December, what to do?