Havana Syndrome was first reported in 2016, when U.S. diplomats in Cuba’s capital said they fell ill and heard piercing sounds at night, sparking speculation of an attack by a foreign entity with an unspecified sonar weapon. Later, embassy employees in the US capital Washington, China and Europe reported other symptoms such as bloody nose, headaches and vision problems.
An investigation published in 2023 concluded that it was “very unlikely” that the cases were the work of a foreign state, although no alternative theory has been put forward and this wave of “anomalous medical incidents”. However, according to a new investigation released this Monday, diplomats may have been Russian sonic weapon target. The year-long investigation “uncovered evidence suggesting that unexplained anomalous health incidents, also known as Havana Syndrome, may have their origins in the use of directed energy weapons wielded by members of Unit 29155 (of the Russian GRU) ”, the report reads.
One of the authors of the analysis, Greg Edgreen, states that the “Russian nexus” is the common denominator in all cases, and the Russian authorities would have even rewarded unit 29155 for its good work on this issue. Members of this group will have been in all the places where attacks were reported, also coinciding with these incidents.
Russia’s 29155 unit is responsible for foreign operations and has been blamed for several international incidents, including the attempted poisoning of defector Sergei Skripal in Britain in 2018.
According to Edgreen, the US investigators themselves set a standard that was too demanding to be able to launch a formal accusation against Moscow because, among other reasons, this would imply facing some “inconvenient truths”, such as that the US had failed to protect the your staff.
The call has already been rejected by Moscow, which considered the accusations “unfounded”. “This issue has been talked about in the press for many years. And from the beginning, most of the time, it has been linked to the Russian side. However, no one has ever published any convincing evidence, so all this is nothing more than an unfounded accusation” , Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a press conference.
