Vladimir Putin is meeting with mystics to discuss the war in Ukraine, insiders have claimed, with the Kremlin forced to deny allegations that the Russian president has actively consulted shamans on the use of nuclear weapons.
Last year, Russia’s top Shaman Kara-ool Dopchun-ool was filmed giving his blessing to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, praising troops and denouncing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as an ‘enemy’, according to state media.
Odd Putin habits like his refusal to ever utter the name of his main political foe Alexei Navalny, who died in suspicious circumstances in an Arctic jail, are seen as linked to a pagan belief system.
Putin’s ‘special attitude to mysticism’, as one insider describes it, has renewed concerns about the Russian dictator’s state of mind more than two and a half years into the Ukraine war.
And most recently, during the Russian dictator’s trips to Siberia and Mongolia this month, Putin reportedly discussed his military offensive with leading pagan mystics.
The 71-year-old stopped over in mountainous Tuva, a remote region which is a Russian stronghold of pagan beliefs, where he is alleged to have previously ‘taken part in voodoo practices’.
Russian opposition figures, citing sources close to the Kremlin, have claimed that Putin used the trip to visit powerful shamans, and even sought a blessing to use ‘the weapons of the gods’.
Kara-ool Dopchun-ool (L), supreme shaman of ‘The Spirit of Bear’ society, conducts a medical session to cure a man, suffering from asthma and liver disease, at his residence in the Kyzyl town, administrative centre of Russia’s Tuva region
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting of the Military-Industrial Commission in St. Petersburg, September 19
The Kremlin has strongly denied the rumours around Putin consulting shamans over the use of nuclear weapons
The Russian president’s controversial trip to Mongolia hit the headlines as his first to a member state of the International Criminal Court which last year issued a warrant for his arrest over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.
Mongolia refused to carry out its duty of detaining the autocrat because of its energy dependence on Russia.
Ostensibly, the visit was to mark the 85th anniversary of Mongolian and Soviet troops’ victory over Japanese forces.
Now swirling rumours say the real purpose of Putin’s trip was to seek guidance from shamans over the use of nuclear weapons which if true raises troubling questions over his state of mind.
‘The mentioned circumstances related to the Russian president’s visit to Mongolia in September 2024 have no connection to reality,’ said the stiffly-worded denial from Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov when quizzed on shamans blessing his future use of nuclear weapons in the war.
Yet the rebuttal has done little to quell swirling speculation that the autocrat does indeed seek the counsel of shamans, and indulge in practices such as bathing in animal blood seen as linked to ancient belief systems rife in Siberia.
The latest fevered speculation over Putin seeking the guidance of shamans over the war – and use of the ultimate apocalypse weapon – are from two significant sources.
Mikhail Zygar, founder of independent TV Dozhd who is a respected editor and author now living in exile, said informers in Moscow had told him of the insider theories emanating from the Mongolian visit regarding the dictator and shamans, seen as diviners of spirits.
‘Mongolia and Tuva are considered the home of the most powerful shamans in the world,’ said Zygar in a column in Der Spiegel.
‘Vladimir Putin has long been known for his special attitude towards mysticism.
‘And he apparently combines his interest in Orthodox mysticism with pagan traditions.’
Rumours following the trip to Mongolia and Tuva indicated the Russian leader had sought the blessing of shamans for the use of nuclear weapons – because he was afraid of ‘angering the spirits’ – and that this was the true reason for his visit.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (R) and Mongolia’s President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh attend a wreath laying ceremony at a monument to Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov in Ulaanbaatar on September 3, 2024
Despite the fevered speculation, Zygar’s sources did not confirm the theory, he said, yet he highlighted earlier reports that Putin had consulted shamans before starting the war with Ukraine in early 2022.
‘All of them assured him of a military victory,’ he wrote.
One such account in October 2022 – eight months into the war – said that Putin had earlier held ‘two meetings with shamans’ as he was ‘actively preparing for a nuclear war’.
Telegram channel General SVR said: ‘The shamans performed a ‘rite’ for Putin, in…which they said that ‘a burning bird brings victory and death’, leaving the interpretation…to the president’s painful fantasy.’ Yet there was no confirmation of this version.
Putin was, however, said to take ‘shamanic ravings….quite seriously’.
The second source regarding Mongolian shamans was Putin’s former speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov, now a political analyst, also exiled.
‘In addition to receiving a blessing to use nuclear weapons (the weapons of the gods), Putin was also interested in the question of his own longevity, as well as reincarnation,’ said Gallyamov on Telegram.
‘He was said to be very pleased with the meetings and the rituals performed.’
Gallyamov told Svoboda media: ‘Nuclear weapons are the weapons of the gods, and such power is not given to a mere mortal.
‘If a mere mortal wants to use the weapons of the gods, then he must undergo the appropriate rituals and receive the blessing of heaven….’
Meaning that he tended to believe Putin’s dalliance with shamanism regarding nuclear weapons, he said: ‘All this does not seem crazy to me.’
He expects Putin will follow up his alleged go-ahead from shamans by staging nuclear tests in the Arctic for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
This could come before a use of tactical nuclear missiles on the battlefield in Ukraine.
‘I think they will conduct them [tests] in order to confirm the decisiveness of their intentions,’ he said.
‘Nuclear tests have two goals, and the second one is perhaps no less important than the first.
‘The first goal is obvious: to scare the West and Ukraine. But there is a second one, which, unlike the first one, is not at all public.
‘I think that after the war began, Putin had a problem: he does not understand the real state of these nuclear forces.
Russia’s Supreme Shaman Kara-ool Dopchun-ool, 76, sought the help of ‘the sun, the moon and the stars’ to protect Russian forces in Ukraine
‘After the war began, it became clear that he was simply led by the nose in many things.
‘Where are the Armata tanks, where are the fortified areas that were built in the Kursk region, on which billions were spent, and the Ukrainians broke into them literally in one hour after several shots from tanks?
‘I think that Putin cannot help but have doubts in this situation: what do I have there with nuclear potential?
‘Maybe everything has already rusted or everything has been stolen, that is, he has a reason to worry.’
Like Hitler, Putin sought a higher authority for his evil actions.
‘It reminds me of Hitler with his Ahnenerbe, the search for the Holy Grail and other cravings for mysticism.,’ he said.
‘I think that both Putin and Hitler could not be satisfied with banal Christianity.
‘Firstly, it is built on morality like ‘do not kill’, ‘do not steal’ and clearly contradicts what they do.
‘I suppose they removed this contradiction by erecting a kind of ‘superstructure’ over Christianity – some kind of exclusive secret knowledge, accessible only to the chosen few, different from the primitive moralising invented for the crowd.
‘Both Hitler and Putin considered themselves too great to be satisfied with a religion invented for the masses.’
Gallyamov sees Putin’s shamanic meetings as organised by Mikhail Kovalchuk, 77, a close Putin confidante seen as behind a recent drive to order Russian scientists to urgently develop anti-ageing remedies apparently to benefit the tyrant and his coterie of septuagenarians.
Shaman Alexander Gabyshev, 55, set out in 2019 to walk 5,000 across Russia to ‘exorcise the demon Putin’ and restore democracy
Kovalchuk, whose brother Yury Kovalchuk, 73, is seen as Putin’s ‘personal banker’, heads Russia’s Kurchatov nuclear research institute and is a leading member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is described as ‘crazy about eternal life’.
It is known, for example, that his bolthole palace in the Altai Mountains 2,375 miles east of Moscow features not only a hi-tech bunker from which he can rule Russia in the event of nuclear war.
The complex includes a maral deer farm where antlers are sawn off terrified Siberian stags so Putin and his cronies can take blood baths, it has been reported.
The ancient tradition is seen as a testosterone-driven elixir to improve male potency, but also as bringing multiple health benefits.
The ‘barbarian’ extraction of deer blood from antlers for ‘medicinal’ baths is intended to boost sexual virility and restore youth.
There is also a theory it slows aging in women, but there is lack of medical evidence as a cure for ailments.
Putin’s lover gymnast Alina Kabaeva, 41, is known to have spent time at this mountain retreat called Altai Yard.
The ‘barbarian’ extraction of deer blood from antlers for ‘medicinal’ baths is intended to boost sexual virility and restore youth
Ahead of one Putin visit, 70 kilograms of stag antlers were prepared for the Russian leader ‘to take blood baths’, it was reported.
Animal rights campaigners have slammed the use of electric saws with no anaesthetic to cut off the deers’ magnificent velvet antlers at such breeding stations.
Observers say the creatures are ‘bewildered’ and ‘shellshocked’, their eyes ‘bulging with fright’.
He was introduced to the blood baths by his former defence minister Sergei Shoigu, who is now secretary of the Russian security council and hails from the shamanic region of Tuva.
There have been claims that the pair attended a shamanic ritual – believed to be in Siberian region Tuva – which involved the sacrifice of a black wolf in a rite to improve the president’s health.
‘A piece of white fabric was soaked with the wolf’s blood and burned,’ said an account of this.
‘They allegedly saw a black raven in the smoke that circled for a long time.
Rumours following the trip to Mongolia and Tuva indicated the Russian leader had sought the blessing of shamans for the use of nuclear weapons. Pictured: Kara-ool Dopchun-ool in Tuva
‘For some reason, this sign was explained to Putin as a great success.’
Earlier in the war, Russia’s Supreme Shaman Kara-ool Dopchun-ool, 76, had sought the help of ‘the sun, the moon and the stars’ to protect Russian forces in Ukraine.
Shamans from Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Kemerovo, Krasnoyarsk, St. Petersburg, and Sochi, Tuva and Khakassia obeyed his call to support the troops in Putin’s war
He claimed the rites echo his grandfather who was ordered by an earlier Kremlin dictator, Josef Stalin, to ‘perform a ritual over Stalingrad and help to win the battle’ against the Nazis.
The chief shaman says he was elected leader after ‘mass shamanic hypnosis’.
He claims to be able to catch ‘with these claws [his curved fingernails]…cancer cells, viruses, and bacteria’ and ‘throw them out the window’.
Despite his alleged zeal for these beliefs, Putin doesn’t seem to like all those with shamanic powers, with two reportedly being crushed under his orders.
Shaman Alexander Gabyshev, 55, set out in 2019 to walk 5,000 across Russia to ‘exorcise the demon Putin’ and restore democracy.
He was blocked by FSB security service thugs and has been locked up in a high-security psychiatric prison for three years, even though doctors cannot find anything wrong with him.
Putin evidently kowtows to shamans but cannot cope with those who are opposed to him.
Putin doesn’t seem to like all those with shamanic powers. He imprisoned Shaman Alexander Gabyshev (pictured)
Alexander Pryanishnikov, a human rights lawyer who defended Gabyshev, said: ‘I’m absolutely convinced that influential figures in law enforcement and security agencies are afraid of all these not entirely understandable and irrational threats linked to shamanistic rituals.’
By keeping him locked up, and away from his land, he ‘loses his power’, it is alleged.
‘It seems that the main reason the authorities are not easing the pressure on him is this fear of rites and rituals,’ he told Novaya Gazeta.
Alyona Polyn, also known as Elena Sulikova, 44, had organised a coven in support of his war.
Ukraine accused her of being a Russian spy or used by the FSB.
Despite this, reports say she has been charged with extremism in Russia.