Russia ‘suspected of jamming navigation of EU leader’s plane above Bulgaria’

plane carrying European Commissioner Ursula Von der Leyen was hit by GPS jamming over Bulgaria in a suspected Russian operation, a spokesperson said.

The plane landed safely in Plovdiv airport and Ms Von der Leyen will continue her planned tour of the European Union’s nations bordering Russia and Belarus, said the commission’s spokesperson Arianna Podesta.

“We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming,” said Ms Podesta.

“We have received information from the Bulgarian authority that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia.”

Ms Von der Leyen, a fierce critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Moscow’s war in Ukraine, is on a four-day tour of the EU nations bordering Russia and its ally Belarus.

“This incident actually underlines the urgency of the mission that the president is carrying out in the front-line member states,” Ms Podesta said.

She said that Ms von der Leyen has seen “first hand the everyday challenges of threats coming from Russia and its proxies”.

“And, of course, the EU will continue to invest into defence spending and in Europe’s readiness even more after this incident,” she said.

Bulgaria issued a statement saying that “the satellite signal used for the aircraft’s GPS navigation was disrupted. As the aircraft approached Plovdiv Airport, the GPS signal was lost”.