Employees of military unit No. 29155 of the Main Directorate of the General Staff (GRU) of the Russian Federation are probably involved in the "Havana syndrome", which has been affecting American diplomats for the past 10 years.
What is the Havana syndrome?
The publication The Insider, the show 60 Minutes, and the German magazine Der Spiegel investigated the GRU's involvement in the emergence of the Havana syndrome in foreign diplomats and special services employees.
"Havana syndrome" got its name after one of the most significant incidents that happened in 2016 in the capital of Cuba. Many American and Canadian employees of the local consulate suddenly began to feel bad, and they felt intense pressure (sometimes pain) in their ears, an attack of nausea and panic, and a sense of strange sounds. For months or even years, they were haunted by blurred consciousness, problems with concentration, loss of balance, hyperacusis, and sleep problems.
American diplomats, officials, and intelligence officers around the world later had similar symptoms, from Europe (including Russia) to Southeast Asia and Latin America, from 2014 to the present.
What causes Havana syndrome is not known for sure, but the main version is pulsed microwave radiation.
As the journalists managed to establish, there is a clear correlation between the trips of GRU employees from military unit #29155 and cases of "Havana syndrome" in different regions of the world.
Correlation of the "Havana syndrome" with GRU trips
For example, in the fall of 2014, a group of GRU employees was in Geneva. Already in November of the same year, an employee of the US Consulate in Frankfurt felt unwell—intense pressure in the chest, then in the neck and head, dizzy, nauseated. Her heart began to beat wildly, her hearing seemed to be turned off, and only a loud and high-pitched sound could be heard in her head.
She later recalled that a few weeks before the incident, a suspicious man had been walking around the residential complex intended for consulate employees and taking pictures of the area.
She recognised the man as an employee of the GRU Yehor Gordienko, his photo was shown to her by journalists.
In 2016 and 2017, US Consular staff and a State Department IT specialist reported strange symptoms in China, which coincided with the visit of a group of GRU employees.
In 2021, an employee of the US embassy in Tbilisi felt what sounded like a powerful sound wave. She noticed a strange car near her house with an unknown man standing next to it.
According to journalists, GRU employees from unit #29155 were in Georgia then.
From the photo, the woman recognised GRU agent Albert Averianov, the son of unit commander Andriy Averianov.
What causes Havana syndrome
Journalists also found a document confirming that Ivan Terentiev, deputy commander of GRU unit 29155, received a state order to study "potential possibilities of non-lethal acoustic weapons during military (combat) operations in the city." The kind of weapon is unknown.
The US intelligence community assembled a panel of experts. It concluded that "Havana syndrome" is caused by a "unique combination of characteristics that cannot be explained by known environmental or medical conditions and may be caused by external stimuli."
In March 2023, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a report calling it "highly unlikely" that the "Havana Syndrome" was caused by the influence of a foreign adversary.
There is no direct evidence of the involvement of the GRU in these attacks, but journalists hope that now the US will reconsider its attitude to the "Havana syndrome" and begin a full-fledged investigation of the incidents.
