Havana Syndrome
Part of Russia's Hybrid Warfare?
In 2016, intelligence officers and US diplomats started experiencing strange symptoms, including tinnitus, vertigo, head and ear pressure, nausea, and cognitive difficulties. The symptoms were first reported by victims at the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba and were subsequently dubbed “Havana Syndrome.”
Except these ailments weren’t just limited to personnel in Havana, and they didn’t just include US officials, but also their family members. Ailments were reported by US personnel in Austria, China, Colombia, Georgia, Germany, India, Poland, Russia, and Vietnam.
“Anomalous health incidents,” or AHIs was a more innocuous name given to these issues, but they were anything but innocuous.
CBS’s 60 Minutes earlier this year did an entire episode on Havana Syndrome, and it was frightening. The episode was based on a five-year investigation and included documents that showed the possible involvement of Russia’s GRU Unit 29155 in developing sonic weapons.
For those who don’t speak Russian, the citation says that the award is for individual work to customers on the subject of potential non-lethal acoustic weapons in combat activities in urban settings. Yes, the very types of acoustic weapons described in multiple reports.
This report by The Insider traces the evolution of the program, describing the “development of basic technologies for the creation of a new generation of sonar and acoustic weapons systems.”
Under this contemporary program, “an experimental model/prototype” of portable ultrasonic non-lethal weapons was constructed such that it could be mounted onto commercial vehicles. The radial range of this device was limited to between ten and twelve meters. In February-March 2014, the total yield of this study in sonar and acoustic systems – the technical documents and an experimental device – came into the possession of the GRU in Sevastopol, in concert with Russia’s takeover of Crimea.
Having obtained at least parts of a classified CIA report released in 2022 under the Freedom of Information Act, attorney Mark Zaid, working with victims, revealed that one of the plausible causes of these symptoms is ultrasound—high-frequency, inaudible acoustic energy that can enter the body through the ear canal or other aspects of the head, potentially disrupting the central nervous system. Microwave energy was also cited as a credible cause, and both microwave and ultrasound energy can damage cells in the brain as well as open the blood-brain barrier, causing proteins from the damaged cells to leak into the spinal fluid and then into the bloodstream.
One problem, however, is that these biomarkers—the proteins from the damaged cells—are quickly metabolized by the body, so anyone targeted with an acoustic weapon would have to have blood drawn immediately to detect evidence.
Luckily, one officer did just that.
The former Kyiv Station CIA officer who was hit in Hanoi in 2021 was one of only two victims of Havana Syndrome whose biomarkers had been measured before the attack, thus establishing an individualized baseline. In this officer’s case, the biomarker levels jumped from normal before the attack to far above normal hours after; they then returned to normal days later, clearly indicating brain injury at the time of the attack, according to multiple sources within the U.S. intelligence community. He was diagnosed with “neural network dysfunction and persistent dysautonomia due to traumatic brain injury.”
You can watch the full 60 Minutes report below. It scared me, given my previous job, and left me heartbroken for former colleagues who weren’t lucky enough to avoid these attacks.
But this is all background.
The National Intelligence Council (NIC) in 2023 issued an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), titled “Updated Assessment of Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs),” which found that “it is ‘very unlikely’ a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported AHIs.”
It’s striking to me that there has been no update since additional information came out this year about these attacks. Instead, we have politicians ridiculing and maligning those affected. We have some “libertarian” media outlets denigrating the current reporting, relying on old assessments, released prior to the updated reporting, and citing a “political writer” with no expertise in this field likening these incidents to the "demonic fits" experienced by girls during the Salem witch trials.
The current media reports revealed all sorts of evidence, including travel logs and call metadata, showing that GRU operatives were in the proximity of Havana Syndrome victims when the attacks occurred. The 60 Minutes report highlighted an intercepted call in Tbilisi, Georgia, just before the wife of a US official reported something odd in her home: “Is it supposed to have blinking green lights?” someone asked in Russian. “Should I leave it on all night?”
It also strikes me as fascinating just how deep in the pockets of the Russians some Americans are. After 60 Minutes aired the episode, now-Vice President-elect JD vance ridiculed the media for supposedly using this report to malign Donald Trump.
Only one problem: the report never mentioned Donald Trump. But God forbid we miss an opportunity to drag “RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA” into it!
And the reports contained plenty of documentation and expert insights, including a National Academies study that found injuries sustained by victims were likely the result of directed, pulsed radio frequency energy.
First, the committee found a constellation of acute clinical signs and symptoms with directional and location-specific features that was distinctive; to its knowledge, this constellation of clinical features is unlike any disorder in the neurological or general medical literature. From a neurologic standpoint, this combination of distinctive, acute, audio-vestibular symptoms and signs suggests localization of a disturbance to the labyrinth or the vestibulocochlear nerve or its brainstem connections. Yet, not all DOS cases shared these distinctive and acute signs and symptoms. In fact, the cases are highly heterogeneous. Some patients described only a set of nonspecific, chronic signs and symptoms indicative of disruption of vestibular processing and/or cognition and diffuse involvement of forebrain structures and function, raising the possibility of multiple causes or mechanisms among different patients, as well as for the same patient.
[…]
Second, after considering the information available to it and a set of possible mechanisms, the committee felt that many of the distinctive and acute signs, symptoms, and observations reported by DOS employees are consistent with the effects of directed, pulsed radio frequency (RF) energy. Studies published in the open literature more than a half century ago and over the subsequent decades by Western and Soviet sources provide circumstantial support for this possible mechanism. Other mechanisms may play reinforcing or additive effects, producing some of the nonspecific, chronic signs and symptoms, such as persistent postural-perceptual dizziness, a functional vestibular disorder, and psychological conditions.
Neither Vance nor the Reason article from a few months ago provided any substantive evidence to refute the reporting that pointed to Russian GRU Unit 29155. They instead relied on sarcasm and the “assessment” of a political writer and “researcher” with zero background in neurology or acoustic weapons, as well as some media reports pointing to old CIA and FBI assessments that a hostile power was not responsible for these injuries.
An interim report from the Subcommittee on the Central Intelligence Agency of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence this month, however, uncovered something different.
The Subcommittee members claim that they have uncovered evidence that the analysis released by FBI and CIA “lacked analytic integrity and was highly irregular in its formulation. It appears increasingly likely and the Chairman is convinced that a foreign adversary is behind some AHIs.”
Why is this only an interim report?
Because apparently, the intelligence community is not being cooperative with the subcommittee. “There is evidence that the IC attempted to shape the 2023 AHI assessment to create a politically palatable conclusion and to impede investigative efforts that would uncover this effort. This has resulted in a degradation in trust between the IC workforce and their senior leadership,” the interim report says.
The IC has not been a willful participant in Congress’s oversight of this subject, despite the impact AHIs have had on IC personnel. Instead, the IC has hindered this Subcommittee’s efforts to understand AHIs, their cause and effects, and how the IC reached their conclusions in the ICA. It is likely that the Subcommittee could have completed its oversight and investigation into AHIs had the IC more fully cooperated with requests for documents and records, as well as made relevant IC personnel available for transcribed interviews. Because of this lack of cooperation and the Subcommittee’s inability to access specific information, the Subcommittee concludes there must be something IC leadership has sought to prevent Congress from discovering. Specifically, the IC routinely delayed productions of requested information to the Subcommittee, placed hurdles on who could testify to congressional investigators in transcribed interviews, and provided productions so heavily redacted that the nature of the information underneath was wholly obfuscated. These actions resulted in a subpoena issued to the National Security Agency (NSA) in May 2024.
And yes, this has degraded trust between the IC workforce and its leaders. Those impacted by Havana Syndrome rightfully feel betrayed by the agency where they served.
“They failed to properly investigate the attacks, then cooked the books analytically, while also launching a campaign to belittle the victims as well, denying them medical care. In totality, this ultimately is a staggering betrayal of the CIA's own people. That is very hard to stomach, from an organization that I dedicated my life to. This report seems to open the door for Congress to fully investigate what looks like a truly historic scandal at CIA. I am both angry, but also feel vindicated, in what has been a very long seven year battle,” former CIA operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos told 60 Minutes recently.
The door is, indeed, opening, albeit slowly.
The methodology of the interim report includes interviews of current and former intelligence community members, thousands of pages of records produced by the agencies, thousands of pages of whistleblower complaints, reports from congressional delegation travel, interviews with agency leaders, including the Director of National Intelligence, the Directors of CIA, FBI, NSA, and others, and reviews of finished intelligence products.
The updated ICA released in March 2023 claimed that “…most IC agencies have concluded that it is ‘very unlikely’ a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported AHIs. IC agencies have varying confidence levels, with two agencies at moderate-to-high confidence while three are at moderate confidence. Two agencies judge it is ‘unlikely’ an adversary was responsible for AHIs and they do so with low confidence based on collection gaps and their review of the same evidence.”
Given the open source and media reporting about Havana Syndrome that has come out during the past several years, I find it difficult to believe that the IC would make this assessment with any kind of confidence!
The House Subcommittee agrees not only that the available evidence doesn’t support this conclusion, but asserts that the assessment “lacked the analytic integrity and thoroughness necessary to be published.”
Those are some pretty strong condemnations of the intelligence community, the ICA, and the assessment about the origins of these injuries. In addition, an IC Experts Panel created by the US Government that included medical, scientific, and engineering experts, issued six findings that were declassified in early 2022.
The signs and symptoms of AHIs are genuine and compelling.
A subset of AHIs cannot be easily explained by known environmental or medical
conditions and could be due to external stimuli.
Pulsed electromagnetic energy, particularly in the radiofrequency range, plausibly
explains the core characteristics of reported AHIs, although information gaps
exist.
Ultrasound also plausibly explains the core characteristics, but only in close-
access scenarios and with information gaps.
Psychosocial factors alone cannot account for the core characteristics, although
they may cause some other incidents or contribute to long-term symptoms.
Ionizing radiation, chemical and biological agents, infrasound, audible sound,
ultrasound propagated over large distances, and bulk heating from
electromagnetic energy are all implausible explanations for the core
characteristics in the absence of other synergistic stimuli.
The report notes that the gaps were likely the same ones encountered by the Subcommittee, including stonewalling, slow-walking, and cherry picking of information.
The question is: Why? Why would the intelligence community, whose mission is to protect America and Americans, intentionally cover up possible Russian involvement in these attacks?
My first theory is that the cover-up was a choice to conceal the failure of the US government to protect its personnel. Eroding trust and confidence in a country’s government and leadership is one purpose of terrorist attacks. Casting doubt on the ability of those whose job it is to protect Americans to perform these tasks results in a loss of confidence in the government and a weaker government infrastructure as a result.
Would a failure to protect our diplomats and intelligence officers result in a failure to protect the general public writ large? Would public confidence in the government’s ability to prevent these attacks be undermined?
These are legitimate questions to ask, and I believe that’s one reason to cover up possible involvement of foreign actors in these events.
Worse, the CIA is being accused of intentionally covering up a whistleblower complaint that accused the US government and the agency of obstruction of justice and witness tampering by deliberately witholding information from other IC agencies to prevent them from conducting their own investigations into the AHI incidents.
This would mean a significant effort to conceal the failures of our national security apparatus, and it would almost certainly further erode trust and confidence in the very institutions created to protect us.
My second theory is the fear of escalation with Russia. By downplaying Russia’s possible involvement in these attacks, the White House could be doing what it has been doing since Russia’s full-scale invastion of Ukraine: working to avoid escalation.
Why did the Biden administration keep a successful hypersonic missile test quiet for two weeks in 2022? To avoid escalating tensions with Russia.
Why did it take 11 months for Biden to allow Abrams M1 tanks to Ukraine? To avoid escalating tensions with Russia.
Why did it take a year and a half for the White House to allow US-made F-16 fighter jets to be donated to Ukraine by other countries? To avoid escalating tensions with Russia
Why did it take more than two years of Ukrainians bleeding and dying to send ATACMS long-range missile systems? To avoid escalating tensions with Russia.
Accusing Russia of launching attacks against hundreds of US personnel, even in the presence of damning evidence that this is exactly what happened, could very well be another bid to avoid escalation.
After all, it seems that the politicians in Washington are intent on leaving at least one door open for future relations with Russia, no matter how much Russia ratchets up tensions.
Two weeks ago, I wrote an article describing all the ways Russia has escalated hostilities since Moscow began its full-scale invasion. Trafficking men from Cuba, Nepal, India, and other countries to send into the meat grinder in Ukraine; enlisting Huthi terrorists to fight their war; launching hybrid attacks on western countries, including medding in US and EU elections; plotting to assassinate the CEO of Rheinmetall; using Russian-language messaging platforms to hire thugs across Europe to stage acts of sabotage; lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.
Is it so difficult to believe that the use of acoustic weapons is part of Russia’s continued hybrid warfare against the West?
But it seems that the Biden administration is still afraid of being perceived as escalating tensions if it declassifies all the information it has about these acoustic weapons and Russia’s possible targeting of US personnel worldwide.
The reporting doesn’t need to be ironclad, but it does need to be available for the intelligence community to make a credible assessment, and leaders in the IC need to stop throttling and politicizing analysis. Intelligence analysis is not an evidentiary package that needs to be 100 percent factual. Intelligence analysis is an educated assessment based on available evidence. Yes, characterize the sources, make sure honest assessments about their credibility is included. Ensure that alternative analysis is also included, if appropriate. Make sure intelligence gaps are highlighted, and dedicate some resources to additional collection on the issue.
Ferpetessake, stop politicizing intelligence! The IC leadership’s ability to control what analysts publish to defend political lines, rather than allow honest assessments based on existing reporting, must be curtailed, and intelligence assessments must be free from political influence.
The harm done to hundreds of Americans deserves a response. It’s the least we can do.
Of course, and I'm not surprised it took this long to get out, even while the CIA/intel knew about it. That is more worrisome to me.