“Much has been written in the media on this topic, but we cannot comment in detail, confirm or deny such statements. We have no information on the incident that is said to have taken place during the NATO summit in Vilnius,” the ministry said in a written comment sent to ELTA.
However, the ministry indicated that “the methodology of the Russian security and intelligence services includes a wide range of instruments that can and are employed (&) to influence and intimidate the opponent.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the State Security Department (VSD) announced that it currently has no comment to make on the media reports claiming that a weapon causing Havana syndrome could have been used in Vilnius.
A high-ranking official of the US Department of Defence experienced symptoms similar to those of so-called Havana syndrome at the NATO summit in Vilnius last year, the US Department of Defense (DOD) said on Monday as reported by DPA news agency.
“I can confirm that a senior DOD official experienced symptoms similar to those reported in anomalous health incidents,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told journalists in Washington when asked about a news report regarding the case.
“This person was there at the NATO Summit in Vilnius; not part of the secretary’s delegation that was also there during that time.”
On Monday, journalists from German magazine Der Spiegel, together with colleagues from the US broadcaster CBS’s 60 Minutes and magazine The Insider, published a report citing a US military investigator as saying that the Russian secret service could be behind the Havana syndrome.
Der Spiegel also quotes a person affected who claims that the first cases of the syndrome emerged as early as 2014 at the US consulate in Frankfurt. CBS also mentioned the case in Vilnius in its report, DPA said.
