Ukraine Warns Ships of Scrambled GPS Navigation in Black Sea

Ukraine’s seaports authority warned shipowners not to rely on a key navigation tool, as satellite communication systems are increasingly being disrupted in the Black Sea. 

To prevent accidents, masters of vessels sailing to Greater Odesa “should be informed about the high probability of losing satellite navigation and spoofing,” a branch of the authority wrote in a letter to shipowners sent last week and seen by Bloomberg. 

While the letter did not name the source of the disruption, Russia has been trying to obstruct various European communication systems since its invasion of Ukraine. In the Black Sea, analysts say it’s primarily part of Russia’s defense against Ukrainian drone attacks, but it may also impact ships carrying commodities.

The disruption to shipping signals in the Black Sea is “getting worse every day,” said Ukraine-based Andriy Klimenko, head of the Monitoring Group of the Institute of Black Sea Strategic Studies. Apart from “protecting their facilities from Ukrainian missiles and drones,” the Russian military are also interfering with Ukrainian exports and making it difficult to track Russian oil exports, he said. Ukraine’s seaports authority and Russia’s defense ministry didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ukraine is a major agricultural exporter, with ships often using satellite navigation to chart a course and broadcast their location. While they can also use radar, maps or visual observations, those signals are used by insurers, governments and commodity traders to track the flow of goods.

The warning is the latest sign of how signals disruption is impacting civilian and commercial transport. Spoofing can cause tracking systems to receive false information about the location of a ship, making it harder to tell where cargoes are really going. Moscow’s efforts to jam Global Positioning System signals have recently forced airline pilots in the Baltic region and Finland to resort to alternative navigation methods. 

Rather than individual ships turning off tracking, the jamming or spoofing is affecting all ships in the area, according to Klimenko.  There is no sign that the navigation problems are slowing exports so far, but they may make it more difficult for ships to operate and to track commodities. 

Kpler analyst Ishan Bhanu estimates that at least 40 vessels in the Black Sea are currently broadcasting a compromised AIS location, with about a third of ships loading Russian coal showing an incorrect position. In recent months, ship-tracking systems have often shown vessels in impossible locations, including on land in Crimea and even in a Moscow airport.