Havana syndrome is named after the capital of Cuba, where in 2016 the first case was identified. At that time, one of the employees of the US Embassy woke up to a piercing sound in one ear. This sound was followed by acute nausea and dizziness. Such attacks continued for several months.
A total of 21 embassy staff suffered from these symptoms, suffering something similar to a concussion, although there was no physical injury. The workers were convinced that their symptoms were caused by a high-frequency sound that made them feel as if they were being attacked by an invisible beam of energy.
They believe they were attacked by an as yet unknown weapon. The White House said back in 2016 that these episodes were the result of “targeted attacks”.
The administration of then-US President Donald Trump responded by expelling 15 Cuban diplomats from Washington and withdrawing most of its staff from the embassy.
But these symptoms are not limited to Cuba: over the years, hundreds of US agents, diplomats and defense officials around the world have reported similar symptoms of the mysterious illness. But what caused these symptoms has long been a matter of speculation or not publicly acknowledged.
But now, a recent joint investigation by The Insider, Der Spiegel and CBS’ 60 Minutes is changing everything. After long, tiring and painstaking work, researchers, including the famous journalist Christo Grozev, claim to have established a connection between the Havana syndrome attacks and their perpetrators – Russian intelligence agents.
What causes Havana syndrome and why?
According to The Insider, hitmen from Russia’s infamous GRU unit #29155 can be directly linked to Havana syndrome. The main suspect is the founder of this unit – General Andrey Averyanov, who trained the hitmen of this unit for operations around the world and is one of the suspects in the case of the poisoning of Sergei Skripal.
Indeed, one of the GRU agents who is associated with the use of weapons causing the Havana syndrome is the main suspect in the S. Skripal case, Serjegus Mishkin. A. Averyanov was his immediate commander, but now this general is already much more important on a Russian scale.
Recently, due to his increased power, he is also considered one of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s successors, and A. Averjanov’s son Albert, according to The Insider’s research, not only followed in his father’s footsteps, but also managed to excel.
He serves in the same unit and is mentioned as one of the main characters in the use of the mysterious acoustic weapon against the Americans, which causes the Havana syndrome.
What’s more, although the name of the syndrome is associated with Havana, as the study shows, the first trips of Russian GRU agents coincided with mysterious attacks in Germany back in 2014. During these attacks, US officials – mostly CIA intelligence officers, but also diplomats – complained of dizziness, headaches, difficulty concentrating and intense and painful ringing in the ears.
The attack is also in Vilnius, but everything is hidden
Among such victims are American officers who worked in Lithuania. One named former US diplomat is Mark Lenzi, who worked with the Republican Party, directly with Senator John McCain’s presidential election campaign in 2007-2008, and a dozen years ago also worked in Vilnius.
He was one of the first to notice cases of Havana syndrome at the US consulate in Frankfurt in 2014, when one of his colleagues collapsed from what he suspected were unexplained headaches. And already in 2018 Mr. Lenzi himself and his wife were the victims of what is believed to be a Russian acoustic weapon in China.
It is V. Putin’s revenge and sick desire to take revenge on CIA agents for the role of US intelligence in Central and Eastern Europe and the GRU attacks against Americans are based. What’s more, as CBS reports, the attacks have not only not stopped, but have become bolder to an extent that is hard to imagine.
For example, the latest attack of the Havana syndrome took place not anywhere else, but in Vilnius, here in 2023. the July NATO summit. According to CBS, based on even several sources, it can be said that one high-ranking Pentagon official experienced symptoms that are identical to the Havana syndrome, and the US official was attacked during a meeting in Vilnius.
Neither the officer himself, nor what he did, what his current state of health is – all this is not revealed, but it is allowed to understand that if the same acoustic weapon that causes Havana syndrome was used, it may mean that GRU hitmen were roaming in Vilnius (and not for the first time ) and organized an attack on NATO territory against an American official.
In this case, besides the most obvious problem that it could be considered an act of war, as Roman Dobrochotov, one of the authors of The Insider’s investigation, admits, there is another one – US officials are still unwilling to publicly acknowledge the attack itself and are even hiding it – perhaps because it it is difficult to prove, and perhaps due to the weakness of the US administration, the reluctance to “provoke escalation”.
Tags: Media Russian intelligence agents suspected attacked highranking official Vilnius mysterious weapon
