The mysterious Havana syndrome, a disease that has affected American diplomats and spies around the world, may be linked to energy weapons used by members of a sabotage unit of the Russian military secret services, according to a joint investigation by the communications group Insider, from the CBS investigative program 60 Minutes and the German magazine Der Spiegel.
A US intelligence investigation, the findings of which were released last year, concluded that it was “very unlikely” that a foreign adversary was responsible for the disease.first reported by US embassy officials in the Cuban capital, Havana, in 2016, and which has since affected hundreds of US employees abroad.
But Insider, a Russia-focused investigative media group based in Riga, Latvia, says members of a Russian military intelligence unit (GRU), known as 29155, were stationed at the scene of incidents. that involved US personnel. Some members of the unit received awards and promotions for advances in “non-lethal acoustic weapons”.
Russia has previously denied any involvement.
The syndrome causes symptoms such as migraines, nausea, memory failures and dizziness.
The journalistic investigation was carried out over a year based on intercepted Russian intelligence documents, travel records and phone call metadata, as well as witness statements that dispute the assessment of the US intelligence community.
The first case, according to the investigation, did not occur in Havana in 2016, but rather in Frankfurt, where an employee at the US consulate was knocked unconscious by what he described as similar to a strong beam of energy.
The US Congress passed a law in 2021 authorizing the State Department, the CIA and other government agencies to pay employees and families who have been affected by the syndrome while deployed outside the US.
A GRU are considered the main Russian spy agency operating abroad. Suspected of being behind several attacks, including one against Sergei Skripalformer Russian spy, in SalisburyUnited Kingdom, or an attempted attack on the headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPAQ), in The Hague, in which the agents were unmasked. Russia has always denied any connection to these attacks.
