Russia is suspected of carrying out a GPS “jamming” attack that sabotaged a flight carrying European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.
The suspected attack disabled GPS navigation services at a Bulgarian airport and forced the plane to land at Plovdiv using only paper maps, the Financial Times reported.
Three officials briefed on the incident told the FT that Sunday’s incident was likely to be the work of a Russian sabotage operation.
“The whole airport area GPS went dark,” said one official.
A EU spokesperson later said.” We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming, but the plane landed safely in Bulgaria. We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia”.
The pilot was reportedly forced to circle the airport for an hour before deciding to land the jet manually using only analogue maps.
It comes after Ms von der Leyen said Europe is drawing up “pretty precise plans” for a multinational troop deployment to Ukraine as part of post-conflict security guarantees that will have the backing of US capabilities.
“President Trump reassured us that there will be (an) American presence as part of the backstop,” Ms von der Leyen told the FT in an interview published on Sunday, adding: “That was very clear and repeatedly affirmed.”
The deployment is set to include potentially tens of thousands of European-led troops, backed by assistance from the US, including control and command systems and intelligence and surveillance assets, the report said, adding that this arrangement was agreed at a meeting between US President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and senior European leaders last month.
European leaders, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and Ms von der Leyen are expected to gather in Paris on Thursday, at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron, to continue the high-level discussions on Ukraine, the FT reported, citing three diplomats briefed on the plans.
