Russia's satellite jammers disrupt commercial airlines
Russian interference with satellites has inadvertently drawn commercial airliners into the conflict, despite Russia's decision to avoid Ukrainian airspace, a French official said Friday.
Russian attempts to jam satellites are disrupting aircraft navigation systems, with alerts and disruptions reported by planes flying near the Black Sea, eastern Finland and the Baltic Sea, according to Air France's security agency. Signal jammers designed to protect troops from GPS-guided missiles are spreading to encrypted non-military aircraft, Benoit Roturier said.
"I don't think the goal at this stage is to disrupt civil aviation," Roturier said. "This is collateral damage."
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Roturier said there were no serious problems with the backup system, and airlines must consider supporting this measure.
"If these satellite systems fail, contingency plans will need to be prepared across Europe," Roturier said. "Some countries closer to the front line may be less advanced in developing contingency plans and the current situation underscores that need. It is a wake-up call."
Ukraine is one of the few countries that has a Level 1 "No Flight" designation, according to Safeairspace's Conflict Zones and Risks database, which pulls airspace risk alerts from around the world. The other countries listed are Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen and Libya.
A report by the EU's aviation safety agency also flagged the airspace over the Mediterranean country and northern Iraq as areas where satellite interference and spoofing had been reported, while acknowledging that the disruption was not considered an "unsafe condition" requiring action from the EU.
The main risk to aircraft in the region is that the military could accidentally attack them, and a cyberattack could destroy the communications capabilities of Ukraine's air traffic control, the database shows.
Keeping Ukraine's skies clear has been a priority for the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky. He has repeatedly called on NATO and individual countries to help enforce the no-fly zone - a move that was rejected for fear of direct conflict with Russia.
While Zelensky eventually gave in to calls for Western intervention, last week he criticized NATO for not providing Ukrainians with more help in the form of munitions to secure airspace.
"Ukraine's skies have not been hit by Russian missiles and bombs," Zelensky said. "We have not received aircraft and modern missile defense weapons. We have not received tanks and anti-ship equipment."
Russia's clumsy attempt to jam Ukrainian satellites may have been because it realized that its unencrypted use of cell phones was killing some of its key commanders on the battlefield. Last month, Ukrainian troops tracked down the whereabouts of a Russian general by phone and killed him and his men.
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