Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO.

Between January and April of this year, an astounding quarter of all flights in the eastern Baltic Sea region experienced GPS disturbances. And the fact that these incidents haven’t resulted in any aviation disasters so far is thanks to pilot skill.

This is yet another example of Russia’s callous disregard for human life. The Kremlin knows that the impacted countries would never countenance doing the same to Russian aviation. But collectively, we can still blunt the harm of these dangerous tactics.

When I boarded a flight to Helsinki and back again last month, I did so without any fear, as I knew the pilots were highly skilled and up-to-date with their training. That’s a good thing because Finland is one of half a dozen countries currently experiencing an extraordinary surge in GPS interference.

According to the Swedish National Television, 122,607 flights in Swedish, Finnish, Polish and Baltic airspace were affected by GPS disturbance during the first four months of 2025. In April, more than 27 percent of all flights were affected, and in some places, the figure was up to 42 percent.

It didn’t use to be like this. Though most countries experience occasional GPS blips, constant disturbances aren’t a regular part of daily life in any peaceful part of the world. But in aviation — and shipping — 2023 was the last somewhat normal year for the Baltic Sea region, at least in terms of GPS.

That year, the Swedish Transport Agency received reports of 55 incidents resulting from both GPS jamming — which blocks crucial positioning signals — and GPS manipulation, which distorts them. Since then, the interference has grown at a mind-boggling rate, reaching 495 cases in 2024. And during the first four months of this year, the Swedish Transport Agency received a staggering 733 reports of incidents in Swedish airspace.

The authorities know the source of the disturbances: They’ve traced them to devices in Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg, Smolensk and Rostov. The latter three cities have military installations, and Kaliningrad is practically an arms depot. Blocking or manipulating GPS helps Russia protect such installations, presumably against Ukrainian drones. But the scale of this jamming and spoofing is massive, and it poses risks to civilian pilots, airline and shipping crews, passengers and anyone else who depends on the global positioning system.

Of course, pilots are trained to smanually operate their aircraft whenever such problems occur, but GPS exists for a reason: It makes flying safer and more efficient. Without it, pilots need a line of sight, and they need to be able to interact with systems on the ground. That often means having to wait to land, which also creates additional carbon emissions.

But what does Russia care about carbon emissions? The war in Ukraine has been an environmental disaster.

It’s a mind-boggling situation we’re in: Persistent GPS interference that endangers both aviation and the environment, and yet, we can’t stop it.

No, we really can’t.

Commentators and members of the public often complain that European leaders are spineless, that they don’t take action or recognize the threats facing their countries — but they do. They recognize the threats posed by foreign militaries, as well as nonmilitary aggression like GPS jamming, gig agents, the shadow fleet, the weaponization of migration and much else.

They’re aware that Russia’s GPS interference poses an immediate and unnecessary risk to aviation and shipping across Europe and not just the Baltic Sea region, as the jammers can reach far into the continent.

But what would we do about such activities if we were in charge? Retaliate by jamming GPS in Russian airspace and risk the lives of airline passengers there? Hire gig agents to set fire to Russian shopping malls or plant parcel bombs on airliners? I think not.

Such actions are immoral, unethical and unworthy of liberal democracies — and they would trigger dangerous escalation by Russia or whichever country we’d be trying to punish for its dirty aggression against us.

But while governments can try to find ways of blocking GPS jammers, putting the shadow fleet out of business and so on, the rest of us can be vigilant and aware of our surroundings. If we see someone behaving suspiciously, we can report it to the authorities. If the aircraft we’re on needs a bit longer to land, we can refrain from bickering with the flight attendants or the ground staff. We can thank the pilots.

National security is a collective undertaking. Being our usual self-centered selves simply won’t do when other countries are on the attack.