Networks

Estonian academic fingers mobile tower-mounted devices as Kremlin tries to swat Ukrainian forces

Russia may be deploying a network of small jamming devices to disrupt global positioning system (GPS) signals following interference that affected the UK defence secretary's flight from Estonia.

On May 21, a Royal Air Force jet carrying John Healey flew for three hours with its GPS disabled after departing southeast Estonia, according to a Times reporter on board. 

The jamming disrupted some of the Dassault Falcon 900LX’s cockpit instrumentation and blocked onboard internet access, forcing pilots to rely on inertial navigation using motion and rotation sensors to track position.

Healey had been visiting British Army 4th Light Brigade personnel near Võru in southeast Estonia, where they were training alongside Estonian forces during Spring Storm 2026, an annual exercise that this year involved more than 12,000 troops from Estonia and allied nations.

The incident is not isolated. In March 2024, an RAF aircraft carrying Healey's predecessor, Grant Shapps, experienced similar technical problems near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Last week, Romanian Air Force fighters shot down an unmanned aerial system – likely Ukrainian in origin – that had drifted into Estonian airspace from Russia, with the Estonian forces blaming Russian GPS interference for the navigation failure. 

GPS disruption data shows the worst affected areas in Europe are concentrated in and around Russia.

Ivo Müürsepp, a senior lecturer at Estonia's Tallinn University of Technology, told state broadcaster ERR that this pattern suggests Russia is running a distributed network of smaller jammers, possibly colocated with mobile network towers, capable of operating both as a base station and a GPS jammer across a comparable range.

Müürsepp believes Russia's primary purpose is defensive, protecting domestic sites from Ukrainian drone strikes. Earlier this month, Ukraine attacked locations near Moscow with drones, while Russia has conducted similar raids on Ukraine.

Last month, the UK said it will provide Ukraine with at least 120,000 drones to support its fight against Russia.  ®