Claims of ‘interference’ from Brussels, parotted by the Western press, are crashing back to Earth

A flurry of reports from EU officials and Western media claimed this week that Russia jammed the plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen into Bulgaria. The tale of “hybrid warfare” in the skies made front-page news across an unquestioning mainstream press. But flight-tracking data shows something very different to what has been widely reported.

What Brussels claimed happened

Read more

The West has a big problem: it can’t stop lying. Even to itself

On Sunday, von der Leyen traveled to Plovdiv as part of an Eastern Europe tour designed to harden Western backing for Kiev. Together with Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov, she visited the VMZ arms plant in Sopot and praised Sofia as a critical supplier of weapons to Ukraine.

Yet the headlines were less about the factory floor than the flight path. Upon landing Brussels sources told the Financial Times that Russia had “blatantly interfered” with the Commission President’s aircraft, knocking out its GPS navigation system on approach. According to those accounts, the plane was forced to circle for an hour and the pilots had to fall back on paper charts before landing in Plovdiv.

teh

Did Russia really jam von der Leyen’s plane? The data says otherwise

Did Russia really jam von der Leyen’s plane? The data says otherwise