Lithuania says Russian GPS spoofing in Kaliningrad now reaches much of Europe

Lithuania warned that Russia has built up enough electronic warfare capacity in Kaliningrad to falsify GPS signals across much of Europe, turning a borderland dispute into a continentwide infrastructure risk. Lithuanian officials said the interference could stretch up to 450 kilometers from the Russian exclave and reach Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, much of Poland, parts of Finland and Sweden, Belarus and the Baltic Sea.

The warning rested on a stark escalation in the scale of the spoofing network. Lithuania’s Communications Regulatory Authority said the number of spoofing antennas in Kaliningrad had risen from three in early 2025 to 36 by May 26, 2026, and that the effect was no longer occasional but systemic. Officials said the disruption was already showing up in civilian life: local mobile networks near Kaliningrad were degraded, and online bus schedules in Klaipeda could stop working when spoofing spikes hit.

The threat has already reached high-level aviation and diplomacy. In September 2025, a Spanish military jet carrying Defence Minister Margarita Robles experienced a GPS disturbance near Kaliningrad. The European Commission also said Ursula von der Leyen’s aircraft had its satellite navigation jammed during a 2025 trip, underscoring how quickly electronic interference can move from a military concern to a political one.

The broader record has pushed European institutions to treat GNSS interference as a safety issue, not a nuisance. In 2025, the International Civil Aviation Organization’s 42nd Assembly formally condemned Russia for repeated interference with GNSS signals in Europe and said harmful interference affecting air operations in the Baltic, Eastern and Northern European regions originated from Russia. ICAO materials say recurring GNSS radio-frequency interference from Russian territory has harmed the safety and security of international civil aviation and that GNSS underpins standard navigation aids and ADS-B surveillance.

Lithuanian aviation data point to a persistent problem. Oro Navigacija received 302 pilot reports of GPS interference between January and early March 2025, and Lithuanian officials said they had identified more than ten interference locations in Kaliningrad that year. European Parliament records also show GPS disruptions in the Baltic Sea region had already been reported on 25 and 26 December 2023, long before the latest warning.

The implication for NATO is broader than the Baltic coast. If Russian electronic warfare can distort trusted signals at this scale, then civilian aviation, shipping, emergency response systems and telecom timing all become potential targets. Europe has moved to harden navigation through systems such as EGNOS and Galileo OSNMA, but Lithuania’s warning made clear that the contest now reaches the infrastructure civilians rely on every day.