Defence Minister-riding RAF jet encountered communication blocking close to Russia: UK

NEW DELHI: A spokeswoman for the British government revealed on Thursday that this week, the Royal Air Force aircraft carrying the UK defense minister experienced a signal jammer as it approached Russian territory.
According to many sources, the incident happened on Wednesday night as Grant Shapps was flying back on an RAF plane from Poland, where he had attended a NATO exercise.

The spokeswoman said that the plane ran into “temporary GPS jamming” while approaching Kaliningrad, which is situated 1,200 kilometers (or around 750 miles) west of Moscow on the Baltic Sea.
“It didn’t threaten the safety of the aircraft, and it is not unusual for aircraft to experience GPS jamming near Kaliningrad, which is, of course, Russian territory,” added the spokesperson.
As a result of reports indicating that the GPS signal was disrupted for around thirty minutes and that mobile phones had internet connectivity issues, the aircraft had to turn to other means of monitoring their position.
Shapps saw hundreds of soldiers taking part in the US-led military alliance’s greatest exercises since the Cold War, the Steadfast Defender exercise, before the incident.
Since February 2022, Ukraine has been fighting Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, and one of its most ardent allies has been the UK.
London has trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and promised to pay over 7 billion euros ($8.9 billion) in military assistance to Ukraine.