2024-04-01 07:30:49
A joint media investigation into “Havana Syndrome,” a mysterious health condition affecting US diplomats and government officials, has found evidence suggesting a Russian military assassination unit “is behind the infections.”
The “60 Minutes” program, which is broadcast on CBS, revealed the findings of the five-year investigation it conducted with “The Insider” and the German “Der Spiegel”, that “Unit 29155” of the Russian intelligence may be… Behind the neurological symptoms, in the first evidence linking a foreign adversary to these cases, according to the “Axios“.
US intelligence agencies have said, more than once, that they do not believe that there is a foreign adversary responsible for this phenomenon.
Symptoms of “Havana Syndrome,” which US officials refer to as “abnormal health incidents,” can include severe headaches, dizziness, nausea and earaches.
This condition was called “Havana Syndrome” because reports of American officials being infected with the disease were first documented at the American Embassy in the Cuban capital, in late 2016.
New evidence suggests that “there were possible attacks two years ago in Frankfurt, Germany, when a US government employee at the consulate there was knocked unconscious by something resembling a powerful energy beam,” according to The Insider.
“The victim was later diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, and was also able to identify an agent of Unit 29155,” the Russia-focused news platform added on Sunday.
Greg Edgren, a recently retired Army lieutenant colonel who directed the Defense Intelligence Agency’s investigation into “Havana Syndrome” from 2021 to 2023, told the CBS program that his view is that “the United States is under attack by the Putin regime.” “.
Speaking publicly for the first time on the topic, Edgren noted that about 5 to 10 percent of high-performing officials across the agency have been affected.
“There was an ongoing relationship with Russia,” he said. “There was some angle where they worked against Moscow, focused on it, and did a very good job.”
Mark Zaid, a security-cleared attorney who represents more than two dozen clients with symptoms of Havana Syndrome, including from the FBI, CIA and State Department, said there is evidence of a government “cover-up” that includes “lines of inquiry that would take us down the road.” “More likely to be answers we don’t want to deal with.”
Zaid told the program that there is a common point among the affected FBI employees, which is that “most of them, if not all of them… were all working on something related to Russia.”
Two major National Institutes of Health studies conducted last month examined the conditions of more than 80 government employees and their family members who experienced “abnormal health events” in locations including the United States, Cuba, China and Austria, and found no consistent evidence of brain injury.
“It infected American diplomats.” Results of new research on “Havana Syndrome”
A battery of advanced tests found no brain injuries or degeneration among American diplomats and other government employees with a mysterious health problem dubbed “Havana Syndrome,” researchers reported Monday.
Researchers reported that a battery of advanced tests found no brain injuries or deterioration among American diplomats and other government employees with mysterious health problems.
The nearly five-year National Institutes of Health study offers no explanation for the symptoms, including headaches, balance problems, and difficulties thinking and sleeping, that were first reported in Cuba in 2016 and later by hundreds of American employees in other countries. Multiple.
But it contradicted some previous findings that raised the specter of brain injuries in people suffering from what the US State Department calls “abnormal health events.”
David Relman, a Stanford University scientist who led previous research on this condition, objected to the results of the studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in an accompanying editorial.
He pointed to two previous studies he was involved in that “found that cases with sudden sensory phenomena differ from any disorder reported in the neurological or general medical literature, and are likely caused by an external mechanism.”
Representatives from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence directed Axios to the portion of the annual threat assessment, published in February, that addresses the syndrome in response to a request for comment.
The report notes that the office is examining the issue closely and notes that most “intelligence agencies have concluded that a foreign adversary is unlikely to be responsible” for these cases.
On the other hand, Russian officials have not yet commented on the results of the investigation. Representatives of the FBI, White House and State Department also did not immediately respond to Axios’ requests for comment.
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