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Hidden dangers: Baltic Sea navigation systems face mysterious disruptions

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Ships in Baltic Sea deal with fake location signals and nav-system problems. Chinese vessels watching undersea cables while Russian interference grows making shipping lanes less safe

Navigation problems in Baltic Sea waters got worse since late-2024‚ with ships location-tracking systems showing weird patterns. The trouble started when Yi Peng 3 (Chinese bulk-carrier) got caught near damaged sea-cables last month: now its anchored between Denmark and Sweden with naval ships keeping watch

Ships going thru Gulf of Finland face a new problem - nav-systems show wrong places or dont work at all. Pekka Niittyla from Finnish Coast Guard says many vessels turn off their tracking; while Lulu Ranne points at Russia as main trouble-maker. This creates big risks in narrow sea-lanes where lots of ships pass daily

The issue isnt new: back in 2017 (about 7 years ago) ships in Black Sea started seeing ghost-locations on their screens. Nils Wang (ex-Danish Navy chief) explains: “Russians got real good at this stuff since early-2022; they learned tricks in Black Sea and now use them here“

Some facts about tracking-system problems:

  • Over 1300 ships got affected since 2016
  • Last year UK found these systems bring $17.2M yearly benefits
  • Russian oil ships often hide their position
  • Two trucks with jammers messed up Danish ferry routes

Anders Grenstad (former Swedish Navy boss) thinks its more than just random trouble: “Russians do this on purpose - its their way to show power even tho NATO controls these waters.“ The worst part is that wrong location data might cause ships to crash‚ hurt people or damage sea-life

Ships captains now must slow down to double-check everything which makes cargo late. Line Falkenberg Ollestad from Norwegian Shipowners group says: “Only pirates should hide their location; this breaks all shipping rules we follow“

This is beginning with Russia because theyʼre so good at it‚ but it could spread to China and Iran

Anders Grenstad warns about future risks

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