The mysterious Havana syndrome, suffered for several years by dozens of American diplomats, is linked to a Russian intelligence unit, according to an international investigation by several media published Monday. Starting in 2016, American and Canadian diplomats stationed in Cuba said they were suffering from problems, namely migraines, dizziness, nausea, vision problems, etc.
These “abnormal health incidents”, according to the terminology used in the United States, were then reported elsewhere in the world (China, Germany, Australia, Russia, Austria) and even in Washington. From the start, the affair led to widespread speculation about its origin. Some US officials initially downplayed the symptoms sometimes attributed to stress, with others privately speaking of possible attacks and already suspecting countries like Russia.
American intelligence estimated in March 2023 “very unlikely” that a foreign power or a weapon was at the origin of the mysterious troubles.
Use of energy weapons
Asked about this, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to comment directly on the investigation but said the State Department and the intelligence community continued to consider a foreign origin unlikely. “Since March 2023, the intelligence community has reached the general conclusion that it is unlikely that a foreign adversary is behind these anomalous health incidents,” Matthew Miller told reporters.
But according to an investigation published by the independent Russian newspaper The Insiderthe German magazine Der Spiegeland the American channel CBS, these diplomats may have been the target of a sonic weapon from Russia.
The investigation, which lasted more than a year, said it had “discovered elements suggesting that these abnormal health incidents (…) could come from the use of directed energy weapons, wielded by members of the ‘unit 29155’ of the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service.
Unit 29155 is responsible for operations abroad and has already found itself at the center of several cases, notably accused of the attempted poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom in 2018.
“Their scope is global for conducting lethal operations and acts of sabotage,” a former senior official at the CIA, the US intelligence agency, told The Insider.
Moscow on Monday rejected the investigation as “unfounded.” “This topic has been hyped in the press for several years now. And from the beginning, it has often been associated with Russia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a news conference.
“But no one has ever published any convincing evidence, so all of this is nothing more than a baseless accusation,” he said. The investigation by the three media suggests that the first cases of Havana syndrome occurred in Germany two years before those reported in Cuba in 2016. In Frankfurt, an employee at the United States consulate lost consciousness due to this which would be likened to a “strong ray of energy”.