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Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 28, 2024

Recent Russian efforts to increase control over migrants in and entering Russia following the March 22 Crocus City Hall terrorist attack appear to be straining relations between Russia and Tajikistan. The Tajik Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) warned Tajik citizens on April 27 to temporarily refrain from traveling to Russia on all modes of transportation “unless absolutely necessary.”[25] Tajik news outlet Asia-Plus reported on April 25 that Russian authorities had stopped almost 200 cars with Tajik license plates from entering Russia at a checkpoint on the Russian-Kazakh border as of April 22.[26] Russian authorities reportedly questioned Tajik citizens and looked through the contents of their phones but allowed children under 14 and people over 60 to enter Russia without questioning. The Tajik MFA reported on April 28 that Russian authorities detained almost 1,000 Tajik citizens at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow and dozens of Tajik citizens in Zhukovsky, Domodedovo, and Sheremetyevo airports in Moscow and held them in poor sanitary conditions.[27]

The Tajik MFA stated that Russian authorities allowed 322 Tajik citizens to enter Russia and added 306 others to an “expulsion list.” Russian MFA Spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed on April 27 that Russian authorities are taking measures to resolve issues at border checkpoints but defended temporary ”thorough checks” of foreign citizens as ”intensified measures to prevent terrorism.”[28] Tajikistan's Deputy Minister of Labor, Migration, and Employment Shakhnoza Nodiri stated on March 30 that Tajikistan observed an outflow of Tajik migrants from Russia following the Crocus attack and that many Tajik migrants are calling the Tajik government stating that they want to leave Russia out of fear and panic.[29] Russian authorities increased crackdowns against Central Asian migrants entering and living in Russia, particularly Tajiks, after the Crocus City Hall attack since the majority of people arrested in connection with the attack were Tajik citizens.[30]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-28-2024

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 29, 2024

The Kremlin is pursuing a hybrid campaign directly targeting NATO states, including using GPS jamming and sabotaging military logistics in NATO members’ territory. Financial Times (FT) reported on April 29 that Baltic ministers are warning that Russia is behind recent cases of GPS jamming that have interfered with commercial navigation signals and forced two Finnair flights to turn back in the middle of flights from Helsinki to Tartu in the past week.[20] FT estimated that GPS jamming has affected “tens of thousands” of civilian flights in recent months. UK outlet the Sun also reported on April 23 that suspected Russian GPS jamming impacted over three thousand UK civilian flights over the Baltic region, and British officials also believe that Russia jammed the satellite signal of a Royal Air Force jet that was transporting British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps back to the UK from Poland in March.[21] Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsakhna told FT that Estonia considers recent GPS jamming instances “part of Russia's hostile activities” and a “hybrid attack.”[22]

FT noted that there are three suspected sources — Russian electronic warfare (EW) assets in Kaliningrad; another source in Russia causing GPS disturbances in Estonia and Finland; and a third source that is active farther north and impacting the northern parts of Norway and Finland.[23] An open-source intelligence account focusing on GPS jamming in the Baltic region assessed that the GPS jammer affecting the Estonian flights is in Russia roughly halfway between St. Petersburg and Narva, Estonia.[24] ISW has observed widespread GPS disruptions across Poland and the Baltics since late December 2023.[25]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-29-2024

The GPS-jammer affecting aircrafts around Estonia is located in Russia, about halfway to St Petersburg from Narva, Estonia. This is shown by plotting the highest density of intersecting radio horizons of jammed aircrafts on a map.

https://twitter.com/auonsson/status/1785045420185473079

GPS jamming map

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/gps-jamming

https://gpsjam.org/