The Pentagon says that a US official presented the “Havana syndrome” at the NATO summit in Vilnius

A high-ranking official from the US Department of Defense presented symptoms similar to those of the so-called “Havana syndrome” at the NATO summit in Vilnius last year, the Pentagon said on Monday, according to dpa, cited by Agerpres.

“I can confirm that a senior Department of Defense official has experienced symptoms similar to those reported in the abnormal health incidents,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters in Washington when asked about a journalistic account of the “Havana Syndrome”.

“This person was present there at the NATO summit in Vilnius, but she was not part of the defense secretary’s delegation who was also there at that time,” she said.

In late 2016, a number of employees of the US embassy in Havana and members of their families began to complain of symptoms such as headaches, hearing loss, dizziness and nausea. The symptoms became known as “Havana syndrome” or abnormal health incidents.

Similar complaints have been reported in other parts of the world. Those affected stated that the symptoms appeared after hearing a strange noise or feeling a strong pressure in the head.

Initially, the American government did not rule out the possibility that these symptoms were some kind of attack.

A year ago, an official report cited five of seven U.S. intelligence agencies as saying it was “highly unlikely” that a “foreign adversary” was responsible for the cases after reviewing more than 1,500 ” abnormal health incidents”.

The reported cases were attributed in this unclassified report to pre-existing conditions, diseases or environmental factors.

Journalists from the German magazine Der Spiegel, along with colleagues from CBS’s “60 Minutes” and investigative media group The Insider, based in Riga (Latvia), published an investigation citing a US military investigator who stated that the Russian secret services could be behind the “Havana syndrome”.

Der Spiegel also quotes an affected person who claims that the first cases of the syndrome appeared as early as 2014 at the US consulate in Frankfurt. CBS also mentioned the Vilnius case in its report.

According to the year-long investigation, a sabotage unit of Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, known as Unit no. 29155, were at the scene of the health incidents when reported by US personnel, and the source of the health incidents may be “directed energy weapons”.

The US Department of Defense said it did not want to confirm or comment on this information. It provided significant compensation and support to affected employees under the Havana Act.

Singh said the 2023 intelligence report is still valid.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “has confidence in the intelligence community, and it continues to make its own assessment,” said the quoted spokeswoman. “The investigation is ongoing, so obviously we can’t say more at this time,” she added.