The US intelligence community (IC) issued a highly notable report on Havana Syndrome on Friday. What the government refers to as “Anomalous Health Incidents” (AHI), Havana Syndrome was first reported by diplomats and intelligence officers at the US embassy in Havana, Cuba in 2016. Since then, AHIs have been reported by more than 1,500 US military and government personnel across the globe (including in Washington D.C.). Symptoms include headaches, loss of gait, nausea, traumatic brain injuries, and very serious long-term neurological impairments.
While a 2023 collective IC report stated that it was “very unlikely” a foreign actor was responsible for any AHIs, yesterday’s report changes the narrative. It states that one IC component judges there is a “roughly even chance” a foreign actor has used a novel weapon or prototype device to harm a small, undetermined subset of AHI reporting victims. Additionally, another component assesses it is “likely” a foreign actor has a radio-frequency antipersonnel capability and that this capability can cause biological effects consistent with some of the symptoms reported as possible AHIs. The other component assesses there is a “roughly even chance” that a foreign actor has a capability that could have caused some of the experiences reported as possible AHIs.
This language represents a marked shift in what, until now, has been an adamant IC effort to deny that Havana Syndrome is anything other than an unexplained ailment utterly unrelated to any hostile foreign intelligence service activity. Even in the hours following the report, many within the community have dismissed the involvement of foreign actors as “very unlikely”. But while it is highly probable that a large number Havana Syndrome victims are suffering from conventional ailments, there is significant evidence indicating that a small subset of the Russian intelligence apparatus is responsible for some Havana Syndrome incidents. What’s more, it appears that the Russians are doing so by employing radio-frequency weapons to essentially microwave their targets.
This fits with a pattern of Russian intelligence service usage of novel weaponry dating back to the KGB and the so-called “Moscow signal” of the Cold War. There is also circumstantial but compelling evidence to suggest that George W. Bush may have been targeted with a Havana Syndrome device during the 2007 G7 summit in Germany. Put simply, this is a very big deal. Russia has been committing acts of war against the US for years. And has got away with doing so.
Two factors appear to have driven this creeping shift in the IC’s assessment on Havana Syndrome. First, increasing diligence and scrutiny by the House Intelligence and Homeland Security Committees of the IC’s prior Havana Syndrome findings. Raw signals and technical intelligence reviewed by members of those committees points strongly towards Russia’s hand. Second, the Biden administration’s departure from office allows the IC to shift this problem to the Trump administration while giving Team Biden a flimsy but at least existent excuse that they took this issue seriously. Yet the political reek attenuated to the IC’s response to this issue remains pungent.
The problem for the IC is that the dam is now breaking. With Congress increasingly engaged, the evidence of Russia’s guilt will become increasingly difficult to hide. A very hard reckoning is coming for senior IC officials, such as CIA Deputy Director David Cohen, who have restricted CIA operations to catch Russian intelligence officers with Havana Syndrome devices and who have presided over a politicisation of analysis in order to keep this issue in the shadows.
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SubscribeInteresting hypothesis, but it might be more convincing if there was some explanation of why the CIA might be inclined to look the other way.
It’s the Russians! Again! And again…and again!
Rinse and repeat…lol.
Amazing how they’re so clever…but don’t do very well. Just sheer bad luck probably…
Easily explained by their history. From the Tsars to the Soviets to today, they’ve always been ruled by kleptocracies.
Kleptocracies are always poorer than free market, liberal democracies.
And where can we find a free market, liberal democracy? Then we can all go there…
The US (except they don’t let everyone in).
A tempest in a teapot.
We in the West would NEVER EVER utilize such weapons or experiment on unwilling subject! We’re virtuous… unlike those nasty, nasty Ruskies!
I would love to know what’s going on in Romania. They cancelled the last election results and they might stop the winner from running again. You guessed it – because he’s a Putin puppet.
What’s going on is creeping dictatorship. But that’s the purpose of the EU.
Happily it will probably collapse economically before that’s fully achieved.
All I can say when I hear Russia boogeyman in the media: lol
At this point, the bull***t is already so thick that we can’t tell what’s potentially true from the rambling nonsense.
The Russians?
Why not the Iranians?
Or the Chinese?
North Koreans?
At least state adversaries are predictable, unlike Australia’s rogue military & police insiders, like members of the MARCUCCI crime dynasty earning day-job salaries at the Australian Defence Force, the Australian Signals Directorate, Victoria Police, etc. Dozens of them across at least two generations. Men & women. Their sadistic pervert enjoyment delivering e.g. voice-to-skull assaults is unmissable.
Since Australia has no functional law-enforcement, likely never had, rogue government/military insiders are free to trade with their counterparts even from North Korea anyway. Iran already uses the Hells Angels to deal with their critics abroad (1). Devices capable of delivering RF/MW-based harm can be sent via post, can be carried, bought/sold, since civilian authorities wouldn’t know what they are used for.
Australia’s criminal police officers like Mario MARCUCCI show off their risk-free criminality with the bone-chilling innocence of toddlers showing off a new puppy via physical & cyber space, as I have been forced to experience since 2009 in a leafy Melbourne, suburb, where I have owned my home since 2001.
I never even dated the stalker ex-coworker, never mixed with any MARCUCCI.
Capabilities dubbed “Havana Syndrome” & much more have been in Australia’s organised crime arsenals since at least 2019. I started experiencing remotely induced physical harm, when in 2019 I declared self-representation against Victoria Police, as they forced me to fight at court in an admitted silencing attempt about crimes I witnessed as a public servant (Business Analyst, Victorian Electoral Commission, 2009-2012), crimes I continue being forced to live with still. It took me almost 5 years to summon the courage & name these crimes correctly: Geneva Convention violations, war-crimes. Without any risk of punishment in a country like Australia. I won at court anyway. Prosecutors bluff.
In Australia crime hiding is perfected to an art-form.
Crimes are always assumed to be the result of something the victim did or did not do on purpose, crime reporting attempts are ignored at best, crime victims are expected to carry whatever is done to them with obedient resignation & silent dignity – out of sight at all times. Only criminals are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Crime witnesses & victims are presumed to be cheating, lying low-lives, a fair game for any sadistic pervert police officer needing a power trip.
Australia faked its way into AUKUS, The Five Eyes, the Quad, etc., so Australian organised crime arsenals likely hold weapons financed by the US tax-payer.
Mick GATTO, Australia’s 21st century equivalent of Al CAPONE openly brags (2) about being able to stop anyone doing anything (60 Minutes, Building Bad, 2024). Mick GATTO evidently relies on contactless extortion capabilities, causing remotely induced physical harm to those, who refuse to aid crimes. If grown-ups withstand even this level of horror, their loved ones, including small children are not off-limits either to Australia’s gangsters, as I was forced to find out in 2019.
See my ‘Perfect Crimes’ LinkedIn article how I became a crime-tech-demo-dummy in 2009 while working as a Business Analyst at the Victorian Electoral Commission. Hint: I haven’t made poor life choices or costly mistakes. I never chose to have anything to do with any MARCUCCI.
Mick GATTO & his organised crime associates in various outlaw motorcycle gangs, e.g. the Mongols, Comanchero, Finks, Rebels, Bandidos & Hells Angels are running the CFMEU, Australia’s most powerful union. The CFMEU have been holding Australia’s governments to ransom via their control over the Labor Party at state & federal levels. Coincidently Australia’s tradies became the most prominent cocaine users – imported & sold by Australia’s outlaw motorcycle gangs (3).
My last, forced experience with technology violating the Geneva Convention today, on the 14th of January 2025 at dawn. I didn’t bother checking the time. There is no point. I exhausted all legal avenues to at least have the MARCUCCI’s crimes on any official record & failed by the end of 2018. Thousands of MARCUCCI crimes just against me since 2009 don’t show up in any statistics.
Blaming Russian etc. foreign actors masks the crimes & corruption of government/military insiders of the US’s allies. Opportunity makes thieves everywhere. Sadistic pervert cowards like members of the MARCUCCI crime dynasty – their targets are forced to get to know them via their crime gluttony – know, only a narrow range of outcomes can be proven to be the results of cyber crimes, e.g. child sexual exploitation, fraud, theft of money/IP/etc., let alone proving any individual perpetrator’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
In Australia might = right, always was, will remain for a long time.
Ignoring crime reporting attempts is nothing new.
See the stories of a double abduction, public gang-rape, torture over several days & bludgeoning to death of two young nurses – no one was ever punished for either the crimes, or police officers’ ignoring multiple witnesses’ in-progress crime reporting attempts (4). See also the story of British backpacker Paul Onions, who managed to escape the clutches of Australia’s worst known serial killer Ivan MILAT. Paul Onions’s crime reporting attempt was also ignored, MILAT remained able to continue his killing spree for two more years – his known crimes span three years (5).
Australia has no authorities to which it would be safe, let alone effective to try to report what is in the MARCUCCI’s crime arsenals. No one knows how many crime gangs like the MARCUCCI exist.
Since these crimes are completely risk-free to commit, Mick GATTO flaunts the law being irrelevant. The law is the basis of industrial civilisation.
Hence my desperate public interest disclosures.
#ididnotstaysilent
— remove spaces from the URLs —
(1) https :// www .washingtoninstitute .org/policy-analysis/iranian-external-operations-europe-criminal-connection
(2) https :// youtu .be/EuoWv-VKvy0
A senior Australian police officer openly admits the police doing absolutely nothing about crimes serious enough to bankrupt the state of Victoria a few seconds after the time stamp 820
https :// youtu .be/EuoWv-VKvy0?t=820
(3) https :// build-it .au/tools-down/cashed-up-tradies-blow-pay-bump-on-cocaine
(4) https :// www .couriermail .com.au/news/queensland/the-murder-victims-seen-by-many-but-helped-by-none/news-story/deea91936b2c70ff9570544c27f32f5c
(5) https :// www .bbc .com/news/world-australia-48346543
I can’t of course provide any evidence, but it all seems quite plausible. After all, this is the sort of thing that Russia does.
Is there any comparison with similar illnesses in non Russian countries Embassies or UK Embassies in the same cities?
Yet the political reek attenuated to the IC’s response to this issue remains pungent.
Was this sentence supposed to read “the IC’s attenuated response”? Otherwise, it sounds as if someone substituted “attenuated” for “attached.”
Maybe the article was written by ChatGPT.
Sounds fairly plausible to me, but in agreement with some other comments I doubt we aren’t also up to radio-wave mischief.
An elegantly-written piece. But where’s the evidence?
As a victim of ongoing, never-to-be-punished, devastating cyber-crimes in a leafy suburb of Melbourne, where I have owned my home since 2001, I learnt the following:
Cyber-crime ranges/volumes are unknown/risk-free because
– Attacks are mistaken for tech glitches/features, blocked calls/messages never known
– Corrupt law-enforcement e.g. Victoria Police block identified cyber-crime reporting (Melbourne, Australia 2009-current in my case)
– Admitting to successful attacks likely damages victims’ reputation, attackers gain further business ops
– Cyber-criminals’ individual guilt beyond reasonable doubt unprovable even in the tiny % of incidents that are obviously crimes e.g. ransomware/theft/child-abuse
– Acts not classified = acts not counted = nothing learned
– For an act to be classified as a cyber-crime type, it must:
* Show consistent/easy to see patterns
* Have rational motives/start/end/processes: opportunistic crimes may seem irrational
* Have severe enough immediate impact to breach alert-fatigue
* Affect those, whose voice is heard in a country like Australia, where justice is only for the privileged
* Be reproducible/likely to reoccur
* Be preventable/defence feasible
* Have a clear cause e.g. phishing fail
* Involve tech understood by civilian experts – agency/military grade tech is risk-free for Australian Organised Crime, since these capabilities don’t exist officially.
Our physical world-based laws fail us, when it comes to technology crimes, cyber-crimes. Except for trivial crimes like ransomware, ID/financial/IP/etc. theft, child sexual abuse and the likes, it is impossible to prove that an outcome is the result of a cyber-crime, let alone proving a perpetrator’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt. This makes crimes like remotely delivered physical harm a risk-free triviality to commit, bringing out the sadistic pervert worst in people as I have been forced to learn since in 2019 I declared self-representation against Victoria Police in Melbourne, Australia.
I am a public servant witness to crimes punishable by 10 years in jail, whom Victoria Police haven’t been able to silence yet. My last, forced experience with remotely delivered physical harm was at dawn today, on the 14th of January 2025. Australia has no functional law-enforcement, likely never had. Our most dangerous criminals have always been police officers.
I am so outraged & horrified by what I am forced to learn about Australia’s absurd crime reality, I lost the ability to fear anything.
PS: by triviality I meant the acts’ provability as crimes, not the acts’ impact.