Guardian: Italy wants to hide government flight routes after von der Leyen incident

Italy is considering keeping information about state flights secret after the satellite signal of the plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was jammed by Russia. This was reported by the British newspaper The Guardian, with reference to unnamed interlocutors in the Italian Ministry of Defense.

In the wake of the incident, EU member states are discussing how to improve flight safety for leaders, as GPS jamming and spoofing – electronic warfare tactics that result in the display of incorrect navigation information – have increased since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and even more so this year.

Representatives of the Italian Defense Ministry said that Rome is considering plans to classify state flights, minimize the amount of information published on the website of the Prime Minister's Office, and prevent specialized tracking sites from publishing aircraft trajectories.

Italian Defense Minister Guido Crozetto first put forward this proposal several months ago, when satellite navigation interference became more frequent in the airspace near Russia.

In August, the Latvian Electronic Communications Authority reported the discovery of at least three jamming points along the border with Russia. In April 2024, a Finnish airline temporarily suspended flights to the Estonian city of Tartu because of jamming, and in March of the same year, the satellite signal of an aircraft with the then British Secretary of Defense on board was jammed while flying near Russian territory, the media reported.

The 2011 decree requires that information on the movements of Italian ministers, including flights, be published on the government's website. Although the government will still be required to obtain diplomatic permission to fly through another country's airspace, The Guardian's sources said that Italy, "following this protocol, may soon decide not to publish information about such flights.".

In February, the Italian prime minister's plane was removed from Flightradar, one of the most popular apps providing real-time data on aircraft movements, but it remains visible on similar sites.

According to the sources, in order to ensure security, the authorities are considering "protecting flights carrying the prime minister and cabinet members from all such platforms".

• On August 31, the plane carrying the head of the European Commission was forced to land at the airport in the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv due to GPS malfunctions. The incident is seen as an operation of Russian interference.
• August 2, Rutte says NATO "takes very seriously" the incident with jamming of GPS signal during landing in Bulgaria of the plane with von der Leyen.