UPDATES WITH MORE COMMENTS FROM GERMAN MILITARY COMMANDER, EDITS THROUGHOUT
By Anadolu staff
BERLIN (AA) - Germany's top military commander revealed on Monday that his aircraft was targeted by Russian GPS jamming attacks twice while flying over the Baltic Sea region in recent months.
Speaking at a news conference in Berlin, Gen. Carsten Breuer said he did not yet have details on the latest GPS jamming incident that targeted EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, but said such incidents have become increasingly frequent.
"I have personally experienced this twice," he told reporters. "The first incident occurred while my plane was flying over the Baltic Sea as I was traveling northward. The second incident was during a visit to a military exercise in Lithuania, the Iron Wolf exercise,” he said.
The German general said that during this period, a Russian reconnaissance aircraft was present in Belarusian airspace, apparently monitoring the exercise.
"They are doing everything in their power to gather information about us. And, where possible, they are trying to test us, like GPS jamming, or by other methods of disruption to simply find out how we behave, so that they can then draw conclusions," he said.
Authorities confirmed on Monday that EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's plane experienced GPS jamming on Sunday during her flight to Bulgaria.
“We can confirm there was GPS jamming, but the plane landed safely,” commission spokesperson Arianna Podesta told Anadolu. “We have received information from Bulgarian authorities that they suspect this blatant interference was carried out by Russia,” she said.