The mysterious “Havana syndrome” linked to a Russian sonic weapon? | EUROtoday
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Migraines, dizziness, nausea, imaginative and prescient issues resulting in blindness… For a very long time, these signs had been minimized by the American authorities, who categorized them as “abnormal health incidents”. After being detected, from 2016, amongst American and Canadian diplomats stationed in Cuba, they had been fairly naturally renamed “Havana syndrome”. The latter was then reported in a number of nations world wide (China, Germany, Australia, Russia, Austria) and even in Washington.
This Monday 1er April, the affair takes one other flip. The mysterious Havana syndrome is linked to using a sonic weapon by a Russian intelligence unit, based on an investigation carried out collectively by the impartial Russian newspaper The Insiderthe German journal Der Spiegel and the American channel CBS.
READ ALSO Vienna: the return of an odd sickness which impacts American diplomatsThus, as these three media reveal, these “abnormal health incidents […] could come from the use of directed energy weapons, wielded by members of unit 29155 of the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service. Responsible for overseas operations “devoted to campaigns of assassination, sabotage and political destabilization”, this unit is “infamous within the American intelligence community”, we can read in The Insider.
“Unfounded” accusations, based on Moscow
This unit has already discovered itself on the heart of a number of instances, notably accused of the tried poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal within the United Kingdom in 2018. The journalists behind the investigation additionally found that members of Unit 29155 had been awarded for work associated to “the development of non-lethal acoustic weapons” – a time period utilized in Russian navy and scientific literature referring to power gadgets based mostly on sound and radio frequency. Both mixed have “acoustic artifact” results within the sufferer's mind.
Furthermore, brokers connected to unit 29155 had been geolocated close to the victims of irregular well being incidents simply earlier than or on the time of the looks of signs.
READ ALSO Fighting Putin: Die or Play Dead? This investigation contradicts the conclusions of the CIA, made public in January 2022. The American company had estimated that the Havana syndrome was not attributable to a international energy. It is “unlikely that any foreign actor, including Russia, would wage a prolonged global campaign to harm personnel [des ambassades américaines] with a weapon or mechanism,” stated a senior authorities official, talking on situation of anonymity.
Russia was fast to react after the publication of the investigation, which Moscow rejected. “This subject has been inflated in the press for several years now. And from the beginning it has often been associated with Russia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated at a information convention. And the latter added: “No one has ever published convincing evidence, so all of this is nothing more than an unfounded accusation,” he declared.
https://www.lepoint.fr/monde/le-mysterieux-syndrome-de-la-havane-lie-a-une-arme-sonique-russe-01-04-2024-2556485_24.php