New in SpyWeek
Havana Syndrome doubts, Kabul chaos revisited, IC slaps down Russian intel on ISIS terror hit, and Shin Bet chills a California critic in this week's edition
Smoke, No Fire: As we expected, a heralded joint investigation by 60 Minutes, The Insider, and Der Spiegel fingered Russia as the culprit behind the mysterious constellation of symptoms known as “Havana Syndrome.” We remain skeptical. The stories exposed undeniable, unexplained maladies and Russian intelligence operations around the globe but ultimately failed to provide direct proof of Moscow’s involvement.
60 Minutes interviewed the man who ran from 2020 to 2023 the Defense Intelligence Agency’s investigation into what the government calls “anomalous health incidents” or AHIs. Speaking publicly for the first time, Greg Edgreen, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, said he believes Russia is behind attacks that have “neutralized” some of America’s best intelligence officers and diplomats with traumatic brain injuries. Moscow was an early focus of Edgreen’s investigation, but the bar for proof of who was responsible was set impossibly high in the Trump and Biden administrations. “If I’m wrong about Russia being behind anomalous health incidents, I will come onto your show. And I will eat my tie,” Edgreen said.
The Insider, a website specializing in Russia-related investigations, linked some AHI’s to Unit 29155, a notorious Russian military intelligence (GRU) assassination squad. One of the unit’s operatives spotted at the scene of a reported AHI in Tbilisi, Georgia, was the son of Gen. Andrei Averyanov, Unit 29155’s founding commander. Senior members of Unit 29155 received awards for work related to developing “non-lethal acoustic weapons,” according to The Insider. A former deputy commander of the unit researched the “potential capabilities of non-lethal acoustic weapons in combat activities in urban settings.”
Havana syndrome gets its name from the first case reported there in 2016, which coincided with the Obama administration’s resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba. Germany’s Der Spiegel found that the first AHIs may have occurred two years earlier in the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany. Several U.S. government employees experienced AHIs there in November 2014. Five members of Unit 29155 were suspected in the attack, two of whom were spotted in the area a few weeks before the AHIs occurred.
Something happened, but what? More than 1,000 U.S. diplomats, intelligence officers, and others have reportedly experienced an AHI characterized by chronic headaches, vertigo, tinnitus, insomnia, nausea, and, in some cases, blindness or hearing loss. The conclusion reached in 2023 by most U.S. intelligence agencies was that a foreign adversary was “very unlikely” to be responsible for Havana Syndrome. A study by the National Institutes of Health found 86 U.S. government employees suffering from “Havana syndrome” had problems with balance, fatigue, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression but, critically, no brain damage. A secretive advisory panel of scientists known as JASON found that crickets made high-frequency noises reported in Havana. The FBI concluded in a still-secret report that Havana Syndrome was “a mass psychogenic illness” or mass hysteria.
Former CIA operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos seriously begs to differ. On the Insider page he wrote that the agency turned on him after he suffered an AHI in 2017 on a 10-day trip to Moscow. Polymeropoulos says officials in the CIA “actively resisted” his efforts to get medical care for years as he struggled with brain fog, loss of long-distance vision, and crushing headaches. In 2021, a team at Walter Reed diagnosed him with a traumatic brain injury, and two years later, the CIA approved his compensation package under the Havana Act. He says he won’t rest until the CIA officers he holds directly responsible for his suffering are held accountable.
Havana Holes? Veteran investigative journalist Michael Isikoff, who joined SpyTalk this week as a contributing editor, pointed out some holes in the flurry of reports on Havana Syndrome, starting with a big one: “Where's the weapon?” Speaking to our editor-in-chief, Jeff Stein, on the SpyTalk podcast, Isikoff wondered why no one has ever seen the mysterious weapon causing all these AHIs around the globe: “Where is it? What does it look like? How big is it? How does it get all over the world?” Isikoff dug into Havana Syndrome claims two years ago in a three-part podcast. Contrary to the 60 Minutes report, he found that not everyone who experienced an AHI had something to do with Russia. One woman worked in human resources at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, not exactly a prime target for Unit 29155. Isikoff’s next question, and it’s a good one, is: Why hasn’t Russia used this weapon on a more fitting target like, say, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy?
The Spy Who Came In From the Kitchen: Another sidebar to the reporting by 60 Minutes and The Insider was the story of the suspected Russian illegal who worked undercover as a chef in Washington and New York. Vitalii Kovalev studied military engineering in Russia and worked at a defense contractor. Then, he switched careers and became a chef. In the 2010s, he worked at a Russian eatery in D.C.’s Dupont Circle and at a Manhattan pop-up run by Russian pop star Ariana Grinblat. (He made borscht on a New York TV morning show.) A former senior U.S. official told 60 Minutes and The Insider that Kovalev was a technical officer for the GRU and a member of a Russian FSB cyber unit, Center 16. In 2020, Kovalev was arrested near Key West, Florida, after he fled police at high speeds in a Mustang. He spent two years in jail—but not on any espionage-related charges. While locked up, he was interviewed for 80 hours by “Carrie,” an FBI agent, and declined to sign papers confessing to working as an illegal Russian agent. (A few months after interviewing Kovalev, “Carrie” experienced an AHI, she told 60 Minutes.) Kovalev returned in 2022 to Russia against the FBI’s advice. His family announced his death last year, supposedly in Ukraine.
Kabul Chaos Revisited: The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s investigation of the Biden administration’s chaotic and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan has revealed a familiar lesson: If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
Hours after Kabul fell to the Taliban on Aug. 15, 2021, three top State Department officials were rushed to Afghanistan with no time to prepare for a withdrawal and no established emergency evacuation plan in place when they arrived, CNN reported. One of the top State officials, Jim DeHart, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee they had to “create from scratch tactical operations that would get our priority people into the airport.” John Bass, who coordinated State’s evacuation efforts on the ground, concurred. “We were already in the midst of executing an evacuation that substantially exceeded, I think, the scope and scale of what had been contemplated,” he told the committee in a closed-door hearing.
Every U.S. embassy must have a plan for a “noncombatant evacuation operation” (NEO) in an emergency. Last month, Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee and blamed the State Department for not ordering a NEO sooner. “It is my assessment that that decision came too late,” Milley said. Thirteen U.S. service members were killed on August 26 in an ISIS-K bombing at a crowded gate to the Kabul airport. Some NEO planning had been underway, but State’s after-action report found senior leaders failed to consider the worst-case scenario that unfolded as President Ghani fled Kabul and the Taliban returned to power. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told CNN that “the U.S. did not want to publicly announce planning for or the start of a NEO so as to not weaken the position of the then-Afghan government, potentially signaling a potential lack of faith.” SpyTalk’s Jeff Stein illuminated holes in U.S. planning in April 2021, six months before the fall.
Keep Talking, Moscow: Following an assertion by Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, that the U.S. warning on a terrorist attack was “too general” to help preempt the assault, the Biden administration released more details knocking down the claim. The Washington Post reported that the written message from the CIA’s Moscow station on March 7 named Crocus City Hall, a concert venue, as a possible terrorist target of the Islamic State. ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the March 22 attack at Crocus that killed more than 140 people. Last week, Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, also said the CIA warning was “of a general nature” and tried to implicate the United States and Britain in the attack. That prompted the White House to disclose more details about the warning. Days before the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the U.S. warnings were “outright blackmail” and attempts to “intimidate and destabilize our society.” At this rate, we may soon see the actual text of the warning message.
Long Arm of Shin Bet: Israel’s domestic security service, Shin Bet, asked a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen living in the United States not to divulge the whereabouts of the son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Offir Gutelzon, who has led protests in California against Netanyahu, says someone who identified himself as a coordinator in the Shin Bet's Department for Counterintelligence and Prevention of Subversion in the Jewish Sector warned him to be “very cautious” in publishing details about the Netanyahu family because "this is a sensitive period." Yair Netanyahu has reportedly been living in Florida, with Shin Bet officers protecting him at a cost of $275,000. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller expressed displeasure at the report, saying that, "As a general matter, the United States would oppose any effort by any foreign government attempting to intimidate any individuals in the United States from engaging in protected free speech activities.”
Comment of the Week: Our item in last week’s column on Paul Manafort prompted Giles Raymond Demourot, an expat American in France and SpyTalk subscriber who hints at a U.S. intelligence connection on his LinkedIn page, to write:
“Re: Paul Manafort, during the Reagan administration, just after Al Haig's resignation, Haig was sent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire)—I accompanied him—to tell Mobutu [Sese Soko, Zaire's longtime dictator] the game was over and we would not support him against the insurrection he was facing. Mobutu expressed surprise as an alleged U.S. government envoy had assured him a week before of the contrary. My investigation showed that the "U.S. government envoy" was none other than Paul Manafort, who exploited, with his associate Jean-Yves Ollivier, a former French mercenary in Africa and friend of Jacques Chirac of France, an illegal mine in Eastern Congo under the protection of a murderous militia. My report to State had no effect.”
Pocket Litter:
CIA chief Bill Burns is reportedly headed to Cairo this weekend for talks with Mossad's chief and top Qatari and Egyptian officials to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. (Axios)
The Israeli army has developed an artificial intelligence-based program known as “Lavender” to generate targets for assassination. Six Israeli intelligence officers say Lavender has played a crucial role in the bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war. Lavender identified as many as 37,000 Palestinians as suspected militants for possible air strikes, and those decisions were rubber-stamped by human operators. (972 Mag)
The U.S. State Department is investigating claims that a hacker stole top-secret government data from a contractor. A hacker known as “IntelBroker” claimed to have stolen data related to multiple U.S. agencies, including the State Department, Defense Department, and the National Security Agency. The hacker said they breached Acuity, a Virginia-based technology consulting firm that works with federal agencies (The Record)
U.S. counterintelligence officers had an unsung role in the U.S. government's effort to develop COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. Bill Evanina, the highly regarded former head of counterintelligence for the U.S. government, says this little-known operation sought to thwart China’s efforts to steal the vaccine or disrupt Operation Warp Speed. Evanina hinted that the counterintelligence effort involved some creative obfuscation, but the whole story can’t yet be told. “Some tools we used that we didn’t know we had in our toolbox,” Evanina said. (YouTube)
Is there something we missed? Or something you would like to see more of? Send your tips, corrections, and thoughts to SpyTalk@protonmail.com.
Always makes my week. Keep these bits coming.
I read this interesting article by Seth Hettena and I quote "Unit 29155’s founding commander. Senior members of Unit 29155 received awards for work related to developing “non-lethal acoustic weapons,” according to The Insider. A former deputy commander of the unit researched the “potential capabilities of non-lethal acoustic weapons in combat activities in urban settings.”
I will comment since I was trained as a Naval Engineer, in particular Accoustics, at Submarine Base
Bangor in 1983, Sonar. Later I worked at a Defense Contractor designing and producing Sonar Systems. We obtained early research papers from the Russian's on accoustics and translated them. The Russian's did alot of the first research in accoustics and have the capabilty to produce an accoustic weapon. You have these type of injuries from our people in service then you have to consider the fact that Russia or another country will exploit it. Howard Walther, memner of a Military Family