Middle East

Kremlin denies its spies are behind US ‘Havana Syndrome’ cases

Iran warned ally Moscow of terror threat days before concert hall massacre, report says

The US embassy in Moscow. Photograph: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images
The US embassy in Moscow. Photograph: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images
Dan McLaughlin
Mon Apr 01 2024 - 17:18

The Kremlin has rejected claims that it is to blame for cases of so-called Havana Syndrome in US diplomats and spies around the world, and continued to link Ukraine to a recent terror attack in Moscow despite reports that Iran warned Russia of an impending operation by Islamist militants.

A joint investigation by The Insider, CBS television’s 60 Minutes programme and Der Spiegel cited Russian intelligence service documents, travel and call records and eyewitness accounts in a report that links Havana Syndrome to a notorious unit of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency and its alleged use of sonic weapons.

More than 100 cases of the mysterious ailment – which includes symptoms of dizziness, severe headaches, nausea and memory problems – have been recorded among US government personnel and their relatives serving in many foreign cities.

Its name refers to initial reports from Cuba in 2016 of possible attacks on US citizens using energy pulses to deliver acoustic shocks to the brain. The new investigative report says an attack may have taken place two years earlier in Germany, and links them to a GRU assassination and sabotage squad called Unit 29155.

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The report says awards and promotions for work on “non-lethal acoustic weapons” were given to members of the unit, which has been strongly linked to other Russian operations abroad, including the near-fatal poisoning of defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in 2018.

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A US investigation found last year that Havana Syndrome – referred to in official records as anomalous health incidents – were probably caused by individual health factors rather than attacks. Many sufferers reject those findings, however.

“This is all nothing more than a groundless, unfounded accusation by the media,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday. “Not once has anyone published or announced the slightest bit of convincing evidence for these unfounded allegations.”

Russia said it detained four foreign citizens in its southern Dagestan region on suspicion of involvement in financing a gun attack on a Moscow concert hall last month that killed at least 144 people. Officials did not reveal where the suspects are from, but four alleged gunmen already in custody are citizens of Tajikistan in central Asia.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack and published footage filmed by the gunmen, but Russia continues to insist, without producing evidence, that Ukraine was somehow involved in plotting and paying for the attack.

Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service accused Washington on Monday of trying to hide Kyiv’s supposed role in an attack which it described as a “direct relation” of artillery strikes and armed raids launched on Russian border regions from Ukraine.

Iran warned Russia about a terror threat just days before the attack, after gleaning information from detained Islamist militants, Reuters reported on Monday.

The US embassy in Moscow also issued a warning over a possible terror attack, which Russian president Vladimir Putin publicly dismissed as “provocative statements” that resembled “outright blackmail” and attempts to “intimidate and destabilise our society”.