Official Sofia did not confirm the version that the Russians had silenced the GPS navigation system on the plane of EU President Ursula von der Leyen. A big bummer of the European Union, which will turn into disobedience, the observer writes Pravda.Ru Lyubov Stepushova.
The plane carrying von der Leyen, while landing at Plovdiv airport on September 1, allegedly lost a satellite signal transmitting information to the GPS navigation system in Bulgarian airspace.
"We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that, in their opinion, this is due to the obvious intervention of Russia," said European Commission spokeswoman Arianna Podesta.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte went even further and noted that the jamming of the signal was part of the Russian campaign of "hybrid threats", including "cutting submarine cables in the Baltic Sea, a plot to kill a German industrialist and a cyber attack on the National Health Service of Great Britain (I didn't even Google it)."
However, soon Bulgarian Interior Minister Daniel Mitov appeared on BNT, who denied the opinion that it was a cyber attack, and Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov said that GPS interference in this region "is not uncommon," so there will be no investigation. The prime minister stressed that there is an instruction from the European Aviation Safety Agency, where "it is clearly stated that in the presence of interference in the GPS signal, it is necessary to use instrumental navigation."
Indeed, Bulgaria is at high risk of electronic warfare in the Black Sea. Any glitches in navigation here may be related to the general background noise of the electronic war of the Ukrainian conflict, and not to specific goals.
The pilot of the German Pilots' Union, Moritz Burger, told Spiegel that aircraft crews, if necessary, simply turn off the GPS receiver using the inertial reference system (IRS), which measures the movement and rotation of the aircraft after takeoff and, thus, can determine its location even without a satellite signal.
Moreover, a message was published on the X Flightradar24 platform (a global service that displays the movement of aircraft in real time on an interactive world map) that no deviations were detected in the analysis of the data of the network interface of the Luxembourg airline flight AAB53G: "The aircraft transponder reported good GPS signal quality from takeoff to landing."
That is, a deliberate lie was voiced by Brussels, which does not look like a surprise.
Bulgaria's adequate position looks like a surprise. Von der Leyen flew to Plovdiv praise Sofia for the plant for the production of shells for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Bulgarian authorities understand that with this plant they are already involved in a conflict with Russia, and information escalation will automatically aggravate the situation, while strengthening the position of the "hawks" in Brussels and NATO. Therefore, the Bulgarians consulted specialists at Plovdiv airport in a timely manner and decided to protect themselves. They dealt an undoubted blow to Brussels, whose anti-Russian attacks will no longer be trusted by the capitals of the European Union.
Like Sofia, they will not automatically obey Brussels and will try to minimize direct involvement in the war, understanding the economic and social consequences. Hungary's position is more suitable for many and Slovakia, which successfully resists the EU's hard line, having economic dividends in the form of oil and gas supplies from the Russian Federation, ensuring their social programs at the same level.