Hidden dangers: Baltic Sea navigation systems face mysterious disruptions

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