A spokesperson for the Pentagon has confirmed {that a} senior official from the US had reported signs similar to so-called Havana Syndrome after attending final 12 months’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Sabrina Singh made the announcement to reporters on Monday, a day after a bunch of reports shops pointed to hyperlinks between the mysterious ailment and alleged Russian operatives.
“I can verify {that a} senior DOD [Department of Defense] official skilled signs much like these reported in anomalous well being incidents,” Singh stated.
Experiences of Havana Syndrome stretch again to 2016, when US embassy workers in Havana, Cuba, began to report unexplained signs together with ringing ears, migraines, vertigo and cognitive dysfunction.
Different cases involving diplomats with comparable signs have since been reported elsewhere, together with in China and Austria.
Consultants have been making an attempt to find out what could have triggered the signs, with some speculating that international adversaries might have directed vitality waves on the diplomats to trigger their illnesses.
Nevertheless, in 2023, the US intelligence neighborhood concluded that it was “impossible” {that a} “international adversary is accountable” for the reported instances.
Nonetheless, a information investigation launched on Sunday raised questions on whether or not Russia was certainly concerned within the mysterious well being incidents — and whether or not the US authorities has been too fast to dismiss attainable hyperlinks.
The report was the product of a joint investigation by the US information present 60 Minutes, the German newspaper Der Spiegel and The Insider, an investigative information outlet focussed on Russia.
It highlighted proof suggesting that members of a Russian navy unit recognized by the quantity 29155 had been current a number of occasions when US officers reported signs according to Havana Syndrome.
The Insider reporter Christo Grozev stated he discovered paperwork exhibiting a member of the 29155 unit acquired a bonus for engaged on the “potential capabilities of non-lethal acoustic weapons”.
The Insider additionally indicated that the purported assaults could have began years earlier than the signs had been detected in Havana. It pointed to incidents in November 2014 in Frankfurt, Germany, when US consulate officers reported comparable signs.
The Russian authorities denied the stories on Monday, calling them “baseless” and “unfounded”.
“This isn’t a brand new matter in any respect. For a few years, the subject of the so-called Havana Syndrome has been exaggerated within the press,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated.
“However nobody has ever revealed or expressed any convincing proof of those unfounded accusations anyplace.”
Final month, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, a US authorities company, discovered no proof of mind accidents or different “organic abnormalities” in authorities staff allegedly stricken with Havana Syndrome.
However it did be aware that “these signs are very actual, trigger important disruption within the lives of these affected and will be fairly extended, disabling and troublesome to deal with”.
Chatting with the present 60 Minutes, a counterintelligence agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation — recognized solely by her first title, Carrie — described her expertise coping with Havana Syndrome in Florida.
“It was like a dentist drilling on steroids,” she stated. “It was like a high-pitched, metallic drilling noise, and it knocked me ahead — like a 45-degree angle.”
In 2021, the US Congress handed the Serving to American Victims Troubled by Neurological Assaults (HAVANA) Act to supply compensation for presidency staff affected by signs associated to the mysterious well being incidents.
Additionally on Monday, White Home Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefly addressed the stories, reaffirming that the administration of President Joe Biden would proceed to push for sources to research the supply of the signs.
“We’ve taken this very significantly,” she stated, whereas deferring particular inquiries to the intelligence neighborhood.
“We’re going to proceed to stress the significance of prioritizing, ensuring that personnel are protected. And we’re going to do every little thing that we will. That is one thing that this president believes is vital,” she added.
“Look, we’re going to proceed to do a complete examination of the results right here that we’re seeing and the potential causes of AHI [anomalous health incidents].”