Putin attacks Spanish plane

RUSSIA – Russia is feared to have hit a Spanish Air Force plane with a GPS attack, after a flight carrying Spain’s Defence minister suffered an electronic ‘disturbance’.

The attack happened this morning after the Spanish Airbus A330 carrying Margarita Robles flew over the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on its way to Lithuania.

Robles was due to meet with her Lithuanian counterpart Dovile Sakaliene at the Siauliai airbase in the north of the country on Wednesday morning. 

Several relatives of Spanish airmen serving in the new NATO air defence mission on the border with Russia were onboard with Robles. 

The Spanish contingent, known as the Vilkas mission, from the Lithuanian word for wolf, last week intercepted eight Russian aircraft operating over the Baltic Sea. 

It comes amid heightened tension with Russia, which has been accused of aggressively testing NATO’s responses to threats. Just a few weeks ago, Russia was suspected of jamming a jet carrying European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen to Bulgaria. 

The plane carrying the EU chief was forced to land at Plovdiv, Bulgaria, using only paper maps, when a surprise interference attack suddenly disabled the GPS navigation system.

The incident was likely the result of a ‘blatant’ Russian sabotage operation, Bulgarian authorities told the European Commission.  ‘‘We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming, but the plane landed safely in Bulgaria,’’ European Commission Spokeswoman Arianna Podesta said.

‘‘We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia.

‘‘The whole airport area GPS went dark,’’ an official brief on the incident told the Financial Times.