Russian nexus revealed during 60 Minutes Havana Syndrome investigation into potential attacks on U.S. officials

This report is the result of a joint investigation by 60 Minutes, The Insider, and Der Spiegel

A lead U.S. military investigator examining reports of what has become known as Havana Syndrome told 60 Minutes he believes U.S. officials are being attacked by Russia and that the official threshold to prove it was set impossibly high.

Greg Edgreen, a now-retired Army lieutenant colonel who ran the Pentagon investigation into what officials refer to as “anomalous health incidents,” said the bar for proof was set so high because the country doesn’t want to face some very hard truths, like the existence of possible failures to protect Americans.

“Unfortunately I can’t get into specifics, based on the classification,” Edgreen said. “But I can tell you at a very early stage, I started to focus on Moscow.”

A 2023 government report deemed it “very unlikely” that a foreign adversary was behind the mysterious brain injuries suffered by U.S. national security officials, yet more than 100 Americans have symptoms scientists say could be caused by a beam of microwaves or acoustic ultrasound. Victims are frustrated that the government publicly doubts an adversary is targeting Americans. The ongoing, five-year 60 Minutes investigation has now uncovered new evidence pointing toward Russia.

Are we being attacked?

White House staff, CIA officers, FBI agents, and military officers and their families are among those who believe they were wounded by a secret weapon firing a high-energy beam of microwaves or ultrasound.

Edgreen said the officers targeted were top performers.

“And consistently there was a Russia nexus,” he said. “There was some angle where they had worked against Russia, focused on Russia, and done extremely well.”

Last year, President Biden attended the NATO summit in Lithuania after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Multiple sources told 60 Minutes that a high-level Department of Defense official was struck during the summit. Edgreen shared what the reported incident meant to him.

“It tells me that there are no barriers on what Moscow will do, on who they will attack, and that if we don’t face this head on, the problem is going to get worse,” Edgreen said.

60 Minutes has agreed to withhold the last name of “Carrie,” a Havana Syndrome victim who is still an FBI agent working in counterintelligence. Her case also points to Russia.

She said she was home in Florida in 2021 when she was hit by a crippling force.

“And bam, inside my right ear, it was like a dentist drilling on steroids. That feeling when it gets too close to your eardrum? It’s like that, times 10,” she said.

At the same time, she said, the battery in her phone began to swell until it broke the case. Finally, she passed out on a couch. Because of chest pain, she was checked by a cardiologist, and then returned to duty. For months, she complained to her colleagues of memory issues and problems multitasking.

“My baseline changed,” she said. “I was not the same person.”

She spoke with the FBI’s permission but wasn’t allowed to talk about the investigations she was working on when she was hit. 60 Minutes learned from other sources, one of them involved Russian Vitalii Kovalev, who was caught speeding in a Ford Mustang near Key West, Florida in 2020. After a high-speed car chase, a search of the car found notes related to bank accounts along with a device capable of erasing the car’s computerized data, including its GPS records. There was also a Russian passport found.

The investigation into Kovalev

What 60 Minutes has learned along with investigative partner Christo Grozev, a journalist for The Insider, an investigative magazine by Russian exiles, suggests that Kovalev was a Russian spy.

Kovalev studied in a military institute, learning about radio electronics, said Grozev, who’s renowned for his experience unmasking Russian plots. After two years working in a military institute, Kovalev suddenly became a chef in New York and Washington.

“It is not an easy job to just leave that behind. Once you’re in the military, and you’ve been trained, and the Ministry of Defense has invested in you, you remain at their beck and call for the rest of your life,” Grozev said.

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