Russian satellites have been found to be the source of brief, seconds-long bursts of GPS interference across Europe. The discovery was made by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Stanford University, who analyzed public data from ground-based stations with global navigation satellite system receivers.
The interference, which lasted less than 10 seconds each time, was detectable by ground stations across Europe, from Norway to Spain to Poland, and even reached as far west as Greenland and Canada. The researchers found 75 days with at least one widespread GNSS interference event between January 2019 and April 2026.
The findings raise questions about Russian motives and whether such interference could be intentionally used to disrupt GPS on a larger scale in the future. The researchers' investigation was detailed in a June 2 preprint paper.
