The European Commission president had alleged that her aircraft’s navigation systems were interfered with by Russia.
Bulgarian authorities have stated that there is no evidence of Russian interference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s aircraft during her recent journey to Bulgaria. This contradicts the European Commission’s earlier assertion that Bulgarian officials had corroborated the event.
On Sunday, after landing in Plovdiv, von der Leyen’s pilots reportedly experienced problems with their navigation systems. Brussels subsequently informed the Financial Times that her flight was “forced to circle for an hour” and contended that Moscow had “blatantly interfered” with the aircraft, purportedly attempting to jam its GPS signal.
However, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov directly disputed Brussels’ assertion, informing parliament on Thursday that no proof of a Russian assault was discovered and that von der Leyen’s plane did not encounter any serious difficulties, only brief signal degradation, which is common in densely populated regions.
“Upon reviewing the onboard records, we observed that the pilot expressed no concerns. The aircraft remained in the holding area for approximately five minutes, and the signal quality stayed good throughout that period,” Zhelyazkov was quoted by Bild.
Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Grozdan Karadjov also confirmed that there is “not a single piece of evidence that supports the claim that the plane’s GPS signal was jammed,” citing empirical data, radio intercepts, and recordings from their civil and military departments.
In an interview with bTV, Karadjov further denied having provided any information about the incident to the European Commission.
Moscow, on Thursday, dismissed the accusations from Brussels as “preposterous,” pointing to publicly accessible flight tracking data which showed that von der Leyen’s jet maintained good GPS signal quality for the entire duration of the flight.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested that the EU’s accusations represented “not merely paranoia, but a cynical scheme to divert their own populace’s attention from the EU’s deteriorating economic situation and from considering the true perpetrators behind the European crisis – the irresponsible, kleptocratic political elites of the European Union.”
Since 2024, Russia has been accused by Nordic and Baltic countries of disrupting aircraft and vessel communications as a form of “hybrid warfare,” allegations that Russia has consistently denied.