The GRU Unit Behind the Mysterious ‘Havana Syndrome’ That Affected American Diplomats and Spies –

A US intelligence investigation, the findings of which were made public last year, found it “highly unlikely” that a foreign adversary was responsible for the condition, first reported in 2016 by US Embassy officials in Cuba and publicly announced only in 2017.

The Insider, a Russian- and English-language investigative media group focused on Russia, based in Riga, the capital of Latvia, discovered that members of a GRU structure known as Unit 29155 were at the scene of the health incidents when were reported by the American personnel, reports the Reuters news agency, taken over by Agerpres.

The Insider’s year-long investigation, in collaboration with 60 Minutes (CBS News, USA) and Der Spiegel (Germany), also reveals that high-ranking members of Unit 29155 received awards and promotions for the development of “non-lethal acoustic weapons”.

The first incident, discovered in Germany

According to The Insider, the first incident with symptoms characteristic of “Havana Syndrome” may have occurred before 2016 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

“There were attacks two years before in Frankfurt, Germany, when a US government employee stationed at the consulate there lost consciousness due to the impact of what appeared to be a powerful energy beam,” writes the quoted source, who states that the incident took place a few weeks after the annexation of the Crimean peninsula by Russia, an act produced in March 2014.

A similar incident was reported on October 7, 2021, in Tbilisi, involving the wife of a US Department of Justice attaché at the US Embassy in Georgia. “It pierced my ears, entered through the left side. I felt it came in through the window,” the woman recalls, presenting as symptoms “acute headaches and nausea.”

Besides, among the symptoms reported over time by the affected people, migraines, nausea, memory loss and dizziness were mentioned.

The woman also remembers seeing a black Mercedes parked nearby and leaving the scene immediately after the incident. She photographed both the car and the driver. Three years later, comparing the pictures, he discovered that the driver in question was none other than Albert Averianov, the son of Andrei Averianov, the founder of unit 29155 and who had meanwhile been appointed in charge of Kremlin policy in Africa.

More than 100 American diplomats, spies and their family members have complained of specific symptoms of “Havana Syndrome”. Many of them have years of experience behind them, particularly in Russia, the Middle East and Latin America, and were deployed after the annexation of Crimea in sensitive roles to counter Russian aggression.

In 2021, the US Congress passed the so-called “Havana Act”, which authorizes the State Department, the CIA and other US government agencies to provide financial compensation to personnel and their families affected by this syndrome during their mission, notes Reuters.

The GRU unit specialized in violent operations

Originally designed as a training structure within the GRU, Unit 29155 was reorganized and transformed in 2008 into a special operations team, such as “assassination, sabotage and political destabilization around the world”, note the signatories of the investigation in The Insider, namely the journalist Russian Roman Dobrohotov, Bulgarian journalist Hristo Grozev and American journalist Michael Weiss.

Three members of this unit, Colonel Aleksandr Myshkin, Colonel Anatoli Cepiga and Major General Denis Sergheev, were identified as responsible for the poisoning of Russian-British double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with a Novichok-type neurochemical. This attack took place in March 2018 in Salisbury, England.

Three years earlier, Denis Sergheev and other members of his unit twice poisoned Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Ghebrev, whose company, EMCO, sold ammunition to Georgia and Ukraine, two countries attacked by Russia in recent years.

Unit 29155 also employed Serbian mercenaries to orchestrate a coup d’état in Montenegro on October 16, 2016 to undermine the small Balkan nation’s NATO membership.

Additionally, according to The Insider, Unit 29155 has been implicated in a series of explosions at ammunition and weapons depots in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic — explosions that began in 2011, right in the middle of the Obama administration’s attempt to reset relations between the U.S. and Russia, and resulted in dozens of injured or dead. In total, 19 Russian diplomats were expelled from Bulgaria and the Czech Republic in connection with these explosions. At the same time, Bulgaria opened criminal cases against all identified saboteurs in Unit 29155.

This structure within the GRU is considered infamous by the American secret services. According to a former CIA officer with expertise in Russia, Unit 29155’s lethal operations and acts of sabotage are “global in scope” in “support of Vladimir Putin’s imperial dreams.”

In typical style, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday dismissed reports of Unit 29155’s involvement in the “Havana Syndrome” incidents. He claims the allegation is “baseless”.

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