2024-04-25 11:01:51
Russia is suspected of using a special weapon with microwaves, there are also cases in Bulgaria
A mysterious neurological disease has been attacking American diplomats and hampering Washington’s State Department for nearly a decade. Its symptoms are varied and can include deafening ringing in the ears, throbbing pain in the head, seizures, nosebleeds, sudden deafness, memory and concentration problems, and white spots.
The condition is known as Havana syndrome and in recent years have
over 1,000 cases of its manifestation have been reported
Interestingly, data on this puzzling disease is not found anywhere else in the medical literature, and it seems to affect only Americans, and only those who work in the Washington state administration.
The most recent case of Havana syndrome dates back to July last year at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, where the alliance’s member states reaffirmed their support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression. According to the Pentagon, an employee of the US Department of Defense, who was in a meeting there, showed symptoms resembling the strange condition.
“I can confirm that a senior Department of Defense official has experienced symptoms similar to those reported in the unusual health incidents,” Pentagon deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said, but she declined to elaborate on whether the person in question was was in need of intensive medical care and whether he is still able to work.
The first case of Havana syndrome dates back to the summer of 2016 and was reported by more than three dozen CIA officers and diplomats posted to the US embassy in Havana. It is from the Cuban capital that the name of the neurological condition originates. Sufferers claim to have experienced excruciating headaches and nausea after feeling a strange grating, stabbing buzzing in their heads. It lasted 20-30 minutes, and those who were under its influence the longest were brought to an almost incapacitating state. One of the diplomats even lost his hearing. The incident happened in the apartments of the affected persons or in their hotel rooms. It should be noted here that members of their families and people around them were not affected.
Places where Americans have experienced Havana syndrome mainly include Moscow and Havana. But other suspected cases of the disease have been reported in Bulgaria, Austria, Germany, France, Georgia, Poland, Serbia, Switzerland and Great Britain, as well as Australia, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Syria, Taiwan, Uzbekistan and China.
One of the most striking cases occurs even in the very heart of American statehood
– The White House. In the summer of 2019, Olivia Troy, who is an employee of the National Security Council, was walking to her office in the west wing of the presidential residence when she was suddenly knocked to the ground by a lightning-fast headache.
“I remember it was on the right side of my head and I got kind of dizzy. I was confused, I felt like I was going to throw up, I was a little disoriented, and I remember thinking, ‘I’ve got to tighten up and find a balance,'” Troy said.
Theories about the origin and causes of Havana syndrome are numerous and subject to endless debate. One of the most common is that the condition is caused by a secret supersonic weapon that works by directing microwave beams at the target’s head, where it causes brain damage. In December 2020, the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine presented detailed evidence that microwaves are the cause of the syndrome. The report concluded that the “most plausible mechanism” that caused the severe health effects during the incidents that began in 2016 was directed pulsed radio frequency energy – a category that includes microwaves.
If these studies are correct, they show that Havana syndrome is not a natural phenomenon, but a man-made one. According to many U.S. officials, one of the first suspects to blame for the neurological disease was the Russian government, based on its close relationship with the Cuban leadership and the nature of the attacks, which appeared to match descriptions given by Russian officials when they boasted of new types of neurological or directed energy weapons. In 2018, Vladimir Putin stated that “Russia has every reason to believe that it is a step ahead of other countries in the creation of promising weapons based on new physical principles.” Years earlier, the now former Russian Minister of Defense Anatoly Serdyukov announced the development of weapons based on new physical principles –
including direct energy weapons, geophysical weapons, and psychotronic weapons
In 2022, however, the CIA concluded that a hostile entity was probably not responsible for Havana syndrome.
“We assess that it is unlikely that a foreign actor, including Russia, would conduct a sustained, worldwide campaign harming US personnel with a weapon or mechanism,” said a senior CIA official.
But in an investigation that lasted almost a year and was published in early April, The Insider, 60 Minutes and Der Spiegel said they had found evidence to suggest that Havana syndrome may have originated from the use of directed energy weapons used by members of the Russian General Intelligence Directorate (GRU).
The report said the neurological condition was potentially the work of Department 29155, the notorious GRU assassination unit believed to be responsible for the 2018 assassination attempt on Yulia and Sergei Skripal on the Island. They were poisoned with the nerve agent “Novichok” in Salisbury. Skripal and his daughter survived, but their neighbor Dawn Sturgis died after coming into contact with a vial of perfume believed to have been used in the attack.
“This is not a new topic at all. For many years, the topic of the so-called Havana syndrome was exaggerated in the press and from the very beginning was associated with accusations against the Russian side, but no one has ever published or expressed convincing evidence of these baseless accusations. Therefore, all this is nothing more than groundless, unsubstantiated accusations by the media,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.