Operation Reduktor

The Insider, 60 Minutes and Der Spiegel have obtained a set of intelligence documents
describing a classified Soviet-era program codenamed Reduktor, or “Gearbox.” Begun in
1984 at the Radio Technical Measurement Research Institute in Kharkiv, Ukraine,
Reduktor’s central task was to study the uses of “electromagnetic radiation to influence
the behavior and reactions of biological objects, [including] people.” The institute was
subordinated to the Soviet Ministry of General Machine Building, which oversaw the
Soviet Union’s space exploration program. (Today its successor is Russia’s Federal
Space Agency, Roscosmos.) The head of the research institute, according to the
documents, flew to Moscow almost weekly to report on the progress of his work.

In 1988, the institute initiated a top secret program for which a separate department,
known as the Eighth Branch, was created. About 300 employees worked for the Eighth
Branch, whose activities were kept secret from the rest of the institute. Most of its
employees were scientists, either active in the Soviet military or retired from it. Engineers
and biologists predominated the ranks. Also on staff were psychiatrists. There was strict
compartmentalization of work within Eighth Branch, such that one team didn’t know what
another was working on and all employees were forbidden from recruiting scientists from
other departments within the Research Institute.

Eighth Branch scientists experimented with electromagnetic energy on rats and rhesus
monkeys. Some of the animals died from exposure to thermal radiation; others
developed brain damage. “The main goal,” according to one Reduktordocument, “was to
create a stable mechanism of information influence (i.e., forcing the object to take certain
actions by influencing the brain and other organs) using a low-energy effect with a power
flux density of no more than 10 microwatts per square centimeter.”

Coinciding with the end of the Soviet Union — and, with it, Ukraine’s independence —
Reduktor’s entire scientific yield was transferred from Kharkiv to Moscow by the KGB for
further development.
The Reduktor documents indicate that a blueprint model of an electromagnetic device
was clunky and conspicuous: “a large dish on an automobile chassis with generators,
antennas and other equipment.” Soviet experts were confident that a smaller, more
mobile version of such a weapon could eventually be created, with an effective firing
range of at least 100 meters.

Separately, in 2010, another scientific research institute in Russia carried out work on
the “development of basic technologies for the creation of a new generation of sonar and
acoustic weapons systems,” according to another document The Insider, 60 Minutes and
Der Spiegel have obtained. Under this contemporary program, “an experimental
model/prototype” of portable ultrasonic non-lethal weapons was constructed such that it
could be mounted onto commercial vehicles. The radial range of this device was limited
to between ten and twelve meters. In February-March 2014, the total yield of this study
in sonar and acoustic systems – the technical documents and an experimental device –
came into the possession of the GRU in Sevastopol, in concert with Russia’s takeover of
Crimea.

In September 2022, the U.S. intelligence community released a classified report titled,
“Anomalous Health Incidents: Analysis of Potential Causal Mechanisms,” a redacted
copy of which was obtained under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Mark
Zaid, a lawyer for more than two dozen victims of Havana Syndrome. The report gives
four “core characteristics” of AHIs: “the acute onset of audiovestibular sensory
phenomena, including sound and/or pressure, sometimes in only one ear or on one side
of the head; …other nearly simultaneous signs and symptoms such as vertigo, loss of
balance, and ear pain; …a strong sense of locality or directionality; and…the absence of
known environmental or medical conditions that could explain the reported signs and
symptoms.”

One plausible cause for these symptoms, the report states, is microwave energy.
Another is ultrasound, a high-frequency form of inaudible acoustic energy that can enter
the body through the ear canal or other aspects of the head, causing potential disruption
of the central nervous system — especially of the inner ear, where sound and balance
are sensed. Both microwave and ultrasound energy can damage cells in the brain as
well as open the blood-brain barrier, causing proteins from the damaged cells to leak into
the spinal fluid and then into the bloodstream. These so-called biomarkers are
metabolized by the body within hours to days, meaning that someone hit with an
acoustic weapon would need to have their blood drawn almost immediately after an
attack to detect this kind of evidence of injury.

The former Kyiv Station CIA officer who was hit in Hanoi in 2021 was one of only two
victims of Havana Syndrome whose biomarkers had been measured before the attack,
thus establishing an individualized baseline. In this officer’s case, the biomarker levels
jumped from normal before the attack to far above normal hours after; they then returned
to normal days later, clearly indicating brain injury at the time of the attack, according to
multiple sources within the U.S. intelligence community. He was diagnosed with “neural
network dysfunction and persistent dysautonomia due to traumatic brain injury.”

And yet it remains unclear exactly how the attacks were carried out, or whether multiple
types of devices have been used. The limiting factor with ultrasound weapons is
distance. Their soundwaves travel poorly through air and solid objects found in buildings,
meaning any device of this type would have to get up close to its target, no more than 10
or 12 meters away.

Another form of directed energy that travels farther and can penetrate through thicker
substances, such as walls and metal barriers, is pulsed microwave energy. The shape of
an electromagnetic pulse that could do the kind of physiological harm seen in AHI cases
would show an extremely steep rise, with each pulse reaching peak energy within less
than a nanosecond. A U.S. Intelligence Community expert panel tasked with assessing
the potential causes of Havana Syndrome concluded that this type of energy could
“fracture” membranes and capillaries, damaging the myelin sheaths that encase neurons
and the blood-brain barrier.

As Operation Reduktor and Terentiev’s research shows, Moscow has been

experimenting with both types of directed energy weapons for a long time.
Dr. David A. Relman, a microbiologist at Stanford University and a co-chair of the expert
panel assessment, told The Insider that elements of Reduktor as described in the
documents “align with what we and others have hypothesized, and thus, are troubling in
their implications. As we stated in the report, the kinds of injuries we proposed to be
caused by special forms of pulsed microwave energy would not be expected necessarily
to show up on brain imaging studies. We assessed that there was technical and practical
evidence to support the plausibility of a concealable device that could cause these
effects. These documents and their origins would appear to be clearly worth pursuing.”

Once that pursuit begins, there is the potential for it to lead to some very disturbing
places. The Kirov Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia is headed by the
aforementioned GRU consultant Sergei Chepur, a specialist in cholinesterase inhibitors
like Novichok.

But it is Chepur’s research work that presents the greatest cause for concern. Judging
from his publications, Chepur is not only a specialist in biochemistry, but also in the
effects of radiation on the brain. The Kirov Academy he heads is one of the few
institutions in Russia that has studied Minor’s syndrome, the extremely rare
phenomenon that just happened to befall embassy wife Joy in Tbilisi following her
encounter with Albert Averyanov.