President calls for probe into GPS intrusion

President Sauli Niinistö has called for a probe into the alleged interference with the GPS satellite navigation service in northern Finland during a NATO exercise, reported the national broadcaster Yle.

Meanwhile, on Monday, the Russian authorities denied straightway the allegation of its involvement in the interference, said the Yle report quoting the news agency Reuters.

“We must find out how the interference was done and who did it. I believe that there are technical devices that should be able to determine the source of the interference, and then [we should] express our views on it, even quite firmly,” the Yle report quoted Niinistö as saying after the World War I commemoration events in Paris.

Earlier, on Sunday, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä said the alleged interference with the GPS satellite navigation service was intentional. It’s highly probable that Russia was behind the signal blocking, he added.

The Russian authorities, however, dismissed the prime minister’s allegation on Monday afternoon.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov at a press conference said he had no information that Russia could have been responsible, adding that his country was regularly accused of all kinds of crimes, most of which were groundless, said the Yle report quoting Reuters.

Earlier, on Friday, the Finnish authorities said an investigation in this regard is going on and key parliamentarians in the national security sector expressed their concern over the incident.

The Finnish Air Navigation Service early last week sent a warning to the air traffic that satellite positioning based on the GPS system could be unreliable in a large area.

The situation assumed political dimensions on Friday as Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Matti Vanhanen said such “infringement is comparable to a border violation”, reported the news agency Xinhua.

The disturbance occurred while a NATO exercise in northern Norway was coming to a close.

The Norwegian media have attributed comparable interference with GPS detected in Norway to Russia.

Parliamentary Defence Committee Chairperson Ilkka Kanerva said in areas where “civilian and military activities border on each other,” unpredictable and dangerous situations could be encountered.

Talking to Yle, Finnish Air Navigation Service (ANS) Operational Director Heikki Isonmaa, however, refused to speculate where the interference had come from. He said no information had reached the ANS that flights would have been affected.

The warning regarding GPS was the first of its kind in Finland.

The NOTAM (short of “Notice to Airmen”) that was in force on 6-7 November covered areas extending from the airport of Kittilä northwards to the Norwegian border and eastwards to the Russian border.