leave all of Europe without GPS

Three researchers have discovered that Russian satellites were the cause of multi-second interference in GPS coverage in Europe. The discovery sparks suspicions about whether this is a Russian test to prepare for electronic warfare… or if it is using such experiments as a hidden communication channel.

What is happening to GPS? Professor Todd Humphreys and his student Zach Clements, from the University of Texas at Austin, and Argyris Kriezis from Stanford University published a few days ago a preliminary version of a disturbing study. They collected and analyzed data from public navigation receiving stations (GNSS) and then isolated high-power pulses of less than 10 seconds that affected receivers at various points around the globe at the same time. After triangulating the signals, they now have the culprit: the Russian military early warning constellation, called Edinaya Kosmicheskaya System (EKS).

Triangulating what is a gerund. The trace of these mysterious electromagnetic phenomena was initially detected in records collected by several ground stations between January 2019 and April 2026. There, at least 75 days were detected in which interference occurred in the L1 band of GPS. When analyzing the problem, they calculated that the jammer was operating at a minimum altitude of 1,200 km. After adding raw data from February 11, 2026 collected in Trondheim (Norway) and Amsterdam (Netherlands), they managed to reach the likely culprit with a minimal margin of error.

Hello, Kosmos 2546. With this data, the researchers “crossed” the orbits that corresponded to all the previous results and everything ended up pointing to a single suspect: the Russian military satellite. Cosmos 256. This satellite is part of the EKS network, a constellation of six satellites theoretically designed to detect the launch of intercontinental missiles. The network operates in Molniya-type elliptical orbitswhich keeps them at high altitudes for long periods of time over the northern hemisphere, and ensuring that at least one of them is visible above the horizon of all the European stations affected during the interference.

The frequency dilemma. There is a detail that makes researchers doubt. The detected pulse is not right in the center of the main GPS frequency, but occurs with a slight offset. Humphreys maintains that Moscow can be running calibration tests to check the coverage of its electronic warfare systems from space without causing a major diplomatic incident. If their hypothesis is true, the Russian satellite network operators would simply have to adjust their transmitters to launch an attack that would neutralize GPS navigation across the entire European continent.

Accident, nothing. Russia may have claimed that this is simply an accident, but researchers discovered that the EKS satellites not only emitted this pulse to “attack” the US GPS system, but also launched a parallel burst of interference in a frequency band that is precisely used in the Chinese positioning system, BeiDou. Theoretically, we are therefore faced with clear evidence of the generation of interference to “knock down” the positioning systems of rival powers.

Another possibility. Richard Bowden, head of the positioning division at GMV, explains that there may be another alternative: that these short and powerful pulses are actually communication messages for military purposes and that they could be sent to Russian bases or submarines. By using frequencies close to those used by civilian receivers, Russia would be able to guarantee that these signals penetrate the atmosphere and are received without problems on already existing antennas… although the side effect is to cause small drops in the GPS of vehicles traveling through Europe.

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