BRUSSELS – European Union officials have vowed to “reinforce even further” their confrontation with Russia and support for Ukraine after Russian agents were accused of jamming the satellite signals of a plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Dr von der Leyen embarked on a tour of the so-called European “front-line states” bordering Russia and Ukraine, a vast region stretching from the Baltic nations in the northern part of the continent, to Bulgaria and Romania in Europe’s south-east.

On Sept 1, the executive jet she was on was approaching the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv when it

. The plane’s pilots were forced to circle the town several times and resorted to paper maps and radio emergency navigation aids to land.

This was due to “blatant interference from Russia”, said European Commission deputy spokeswoman Arianna Podesta, citing accusations from the Bulgarian authorities.

“Threats and intimidations are a regular component of Russia’s hostile behaviour,” she added.

Russia is often accused of either jamming or “spoofing” – electronic interference that sends incorrect navigation information – signals of aircraft belonging to Western nations. Until now, most of these incidents have occurred in the airspace above the Baltic Sea.

Clues about the origins of these operations are now fairly conclusive. In March 2024, a British military jet carrying the country’s defence minister was deprived of GPS signals for more than half an hour as it flew near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad in the Baltic region.

Since their

, the Russians have also been jamming GPS signals above the Black Sea, affecting air navigation to Bulgaria and Romania.

But the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv is more than 200km from the shores of the Black Sea.

This has led experts from Skai Data Services, a Swiss company specialising in countering aviation interference, to conclude that Dr von der Leyen’s plane must have been affected by hostile agents operating inside Bulgaria, rather than by remote Russian transmitters.

“The circumstances in Plovdiv point to an operation from the ground,” the company told Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Switzerland’s top German-language daily, on Sept 2. “A jammer would have been placed in the vicinity of the airport.”

If subsequent investigations confirm the Swiss experts’ hunch, it must be concluded that the attempt to jam the European Commission President’s aircraft was not only designed to disrupt her movements near Ukraine’s front lines but also aimed to prove the ability of Russian security agents to penetrate deep inside EU territory.

For the moment, the incident has only added credibility to Dr von der Leyen’s trip, a journey purposely designed as an act of defiance against Russia.

She started her tour of the continent’s front-line states with a press conference held in an open field, 1m from the steel fence separating Poland from Belarus, a Russian ally; the silhouettes of burly, heavily-armed Belarusian border guards standing just behind her offered a perfect photo opportunity.

Dr von der Leyen then emerged unruffled from her aircraft incident to visit a major Bulgarian munitions factory which has supplied Ukraine with at least a third of the country’s artillery and tank shell needs.

And she finished her tour on the deck of a frigate belonging to the Romanian navy; the fact that the frigate in question is almost half a century old did not hamper yet another good photo opportunity.

As a show of European resolve, Dr von der Leyen’s trip was a success. The snag is that, while she was doing her bit for European unity, deep political divisions about what the continent should do to support Ukraine remain unresolved.

Seeking to work around US President Donald Trump’s refusal to supply US weapons to Ukraine, European governments agreed that they will pay the US for such weapons and then transfer them to the Ukrainians.

Officials in Brussels now estimate that the funding gap between the need to purchase US weapons and other reconstruction pledges to Ukraine already amounts to €60 billion (S$90 billion), at a time when all EU governments are seeking to cut expenditure while ramping up their national military spending.

Payment is supposed to come from a €17 billion fund called the European Peace Facility (EPF). However, the fund is too small: It is designed to be split between supporting Ukraine’s weapon purchases and aiding front-line EU states. Furthermore, it is intended to last until the end of 2027, rather than be exhausted now.

Denmark, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU for the rest of 2025, has tried to broker a compromise over the distribution of the EPF. But Hungary vetoed any agreement, as it objects to further weapon purchases for Ukraine.

During her latest trip to front-line states, Dr von der Leyen undoubtedly attempted to negotiate a deal to release these funds. But Hungary was not on her itinerary, and no compromise is in sight.

Some EU member states now argue that support for Ukraine should be financed

, frozen by Western sanctions soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The funds – estimated at around €190 billion – are held by Euroclear Bank, a central securities depository based in Belgium.

Ukraine’s most ardent supporters in central and Eastern Europe want the Russian assets seized outright and given to Ukraine. However, France, Germany and Italy claim that the confiscation of Russia’s money could undermine the EU’s credibility and alarm global financial markets, a warning also confirmed by Ms Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank.

Under a previous EU compromise, Russia’s frozen assets remained untouched but the interest and profit they earned were to be given to Ukraine. However, only €3.7 billion of these “windfall profits” have reached Ukraine, a trifling amount for a country ravaged by war.

If Dr von der Leyen is serious about her pledge to defend Europe’s borders from Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom she now calls a “predator”, she will have to convince EU member states to dig even deeper into their pockets. In addition to deploying additional EU satellites to combat GPS interference.