Estonia losing drones to Russian GPS interference

Estonia's security services have lost dozens of drones due to electronic interference coming from Russia and now plans to act. Last week, the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) said it had established a five-kilometer-long "no-fly" zone along the eastern border.
ETV's investigative show "Pealtnägija" requested information about the drones the PPA has lost control of or that have crashed due to electronic interference.
The security services have already lost several dozen drones, and private citizens have faced the same problems, it was told.
This is the first time the state has reacted to the GPS problems that experts have been monitoring for several years. Experts from the technology, military, and domestic security fields confirmed this jamming is a growing problem.
GPS is a satellite-based global positioning system used to determine precise locations, from car and air traffic to military operations and infrastructure construction.
GPS signal jamming across the region hit the headlines over a year ago and several civilian flights reported problems with navigation. Some flights could not land and were diverted.
While there was initially speculation about the source of the interference, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was one of the first to summon Russia's chargé d'affaires last May to protest.
According to experts, Russia mainly uses its GLONASS positioning system, and the main goal of jamming GPS is to prevent Ukrainian drones from attacking infrastructure. Both Pskov military airfield and the port of Ust-Luga are located close to the Estonian-Russia border and have come under attack.
"This is a response to Ukraine's capabilities. Ukrainian drones can reach that far, destroying important infrastructure in Russia, both military and civilian, and that is being defended. The Ust-Luga port, various military facilities in St. Petersburg — which are close to Estonia — are the main reasons why this is happening," said Minister of the Interior Lauri Läänemets (SDE).

Eerik Purgel, head of the PPA's eastern prefecture, said: "Russia is defending itself, but the impact of this defense extends beyond its own borders and, unfortunately, significantly affects civilian life as well. This includes aircraft, where GPS devices do not function, and civilian drone aviation, which is restricted in certain areas. According to the TTJA, these restrictions extend in varying altitudes up to Kunda."
Neither the Consumer Protection and Technical Supervision Authority (TTJA), whose task is to ensure the reliability of positioning and radio frequency operations, nor any Estonian security agency wants to reveal the jammers' exact location.
However, open source online analysts have attempted to find them. According to one map, the closest permanent jammers are located less than 100 kilometers from the border in the Leningrad Region and Kaliningrad. Another source locates them to a village called Lyadi 80 kilometers from the Estonian border.
The impact is most strongly felt in Estonia's eastern regions.
"Essentially, we have identified the source where these disturbances originate. We know their locations. Through this, we can see the extent of their impact. The Narva direction is definitely one of them because the Ust-Luga port is right next to us — only a few dozen kilometers away — so it is completely natural that when such devices are activated there, their effect reaches us. Certain impacts have also been observed in the southern direction," said Purgel.

Last May, residents in the border city Narva noticed GPS signal interference when using the Waze and Google Maps applications. A small airship-like device was launched directly across the river from Russia at the same time.
Estonian Military Academy Researcher Kaarel Piip said today's jammers can be small and portable. The signal range depends on the device's power and the height it is located.
"If a jammer is placed, for example, on top of a 100-meter mast, what primarily limits the spread of its signal is the curvature of the Earth. For a transmitter positioned at a height of 100 meters, the so-called horizon is about 40–50 kilometers away, which means that this is the maximum distance the jamming signal can reach at ground level. However, the jamming signal, simply put, travels in a straight line and gradually rises above the ground. At a distance of about 100 kilometers, the interference begins at roughly 100 meters above the ground, and the jamming signal continues to rise higher and higher. Since signals travel well in the air, at high altitudes, the range of interference can extend for hundreds of kilometers," Piip told the show.
This is why passenger planes flying at altitudes of several kilometers most often report interference.

"Most of the reports come from aircraft pilots, occasionally also from drone operators. Last year, we also received some reports from vessels in the Gulf of Finland. For example, land surveyors have reported that the quality of their GPS signal is not good enough for them to perform their work effectively. However, when using a phone for navigation or a car's GPS system, these disruptions generally do not have much of an effect," said Erko Kulu, head of the TTJA's frequency management service.
However, as Ukrainian drone attacks have become more common, Russian interference has intensified and is increasingly affecting Estonia on the ground, said Eerik Purgel, head of the PPA Eastern Prefecture.
"We have seen certain conditions where even car GPS devices do not work. It depends on whether a certain capability on the other side has been activated or not. However, this can be very easily detected and addressed, so it is not really a problem," he told the show.
While on May 9 last year, the PPA drone was tethered in Narva to prevent it from flying off to Russia, officials say that now it has adapted better to the situation.
One case is the Environmental Board which uses drones for monitoring illegal logging, mapping the spread of hogweed and determining environmental damage, among other things. The agency's drone specialist said there have been close calls, for example, when conducting an inspection flight of a landfill near Jõhvi in early September.
The PPA uses drones for everything from detecting border violators to searching for lost mushroom pickers.

"Basically, it can be said that jamming occurs on a daily basis. There are some small gaps where it stops, but they are relatively rare. If interference occurs while we are ascending, we lose the satellite connection, meaning that an airborne machine at that moment does not know exactly where it is. However, this does not interfere with our work. We control it manually, and the job always gets done," said Andrei Kokorin, head of the remote sensing group at the Eastern Prefecture.
The Estonian Defense League uses drones in exercises, and losses are always painful for them. But important lessons can also be learned.
Both the Estonian Defense Forces and intelligence services do not want to discuss the topic to not reveal their capabilities.
But civil authorities and the Defense League said that during the year about 20 unmanned aerial vehicles have made emergency landings due to interference, which is directly associated with electronic jamming.
The PPA's last incident was just a few weeks ago, when one of their drones, which was used for border patrol, crashed in Ida-Viru County.
It was largely because of incidents like these that the PPA decided last week to establish a five-kilometer exclusion zone along the eastern border, where permits for flying hobby drones will no longer be issued.
While there are no rules in hybrid warfare, the TTJA has still tried to contact its Russian counterpart to put a stop to the dangerous situation. So far no substantive response has been received.
--
Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!
Editor: Marko Tooming, Helen Wright
Source: Pealtnägija