The Finnish region of Lapland and northern parts of Norway close to the Russian border were affected by the blackouts with the Norwegian regional airline Widerøe confirming its pilots had experienced GPS disruption. The Kremlin has dismissed the allegations a “groundless” but furious Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila said: “This is not a joke, it threatened the air security of ordinary people.” Mr Sipila said he believed the signal had been jammed deliberately and pointed the finger at Russia because it has the means to carry out such an attack.
He said: “It is possible that Russia has been the disrupting party in this. Russia is known to possess such capabilities.
“Technology-wise, it’s relatively easy to disturb a radio signal, and it’s possible that Russia was behind it.”
Finland is not a Nato member but was involved in the Trident Juncture drills – NATO’s biggest military exercise since the Cold War – which rehearsed how the US-led alliance would respond to the invasion of an ally.
All 29 NATO members, as well as Finland and Sweden, were involved in the manouevres a few hundred miles from Norway’s border with Russia.
Norway also reported GPS problems during the exercises near Russia’s north-western borders.
Wenche Olsen, director of the Civil Aviation Authority of Norway, said: “It is difficult to say what the reasons could be but there are reasons to believe it could be related to military exercise activities outside Norway’s borders.”
A Norwegian Defence Ministry spokesman said: “We are aware that jamming has been recorded between October 16 and November 7 from the Russian forces.”
He said the electronic interference was traced back to the Kola peninsula in Russia’s far Arctic northwest.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the accusations against Russia as “groundless.”
He said: “We have no knowledge of Russia possibly having any role in GPS malfunction.
“You should ask experts or the Defence Ministry but there is an obvious trend to blame Russia for all mortal sins and then some.
“As a rule, these accusations are baseless.”