We know he’s mad. But did Putin really consult shamans in Mongolia about unleashing the nuclear weapons that could start World War III?

Most political leaders have a quirk that sets them apart from the rest of us.

Baroness Thatcher could survive on four hours of sleep a night, Gordon Brown reportedly ate four KitKats a day and Lord Cameron is said to have had a blackbelt in ‘chillaxing’.

Vladimir Putin, 71, meanwhile, has what Kremlin insiders call a “special attitude towards mysticism” and a deep belief in shamanism – that individuals can communicate with the spirit world.

Which, as the story goes, has seen him bathe in the blood of a Siberian red deer to enhance his manhood, practice voodoo with a black wolf and seek constant advice from leading mystics.

But even by the Russian dictator’s bizarre standards, the latest reports show that he has visited shamans in Mongolia and Siberia to discuss military operations with them and even ask their blessing for the use of nuclear missiles (or “the weapons of the gods’ like they call them) – sounds a bit far-fetched.

There was so much strange about these visits.

For starters, Mongolia is a party to the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant following Putin’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children. The country should have arrested him on the spot. Putin knew that, but went anyway. This was his third visit in a decade – ostensibly to mark the 85th anniversary of the victory of Mongolian and Soviet forces over Japanese forces. (And presumably based on Mongolia’s dependence on Russian energy for its safe passage.)

Along the way he stopped in the remote, mountainous region of Tuva – a stronghold of pagan beliefs where they speak their own language and engage in a rather niche form of Mongolian wrestling – where he had reportedly taken part in voodoo on an earlier trip. practices.

He was there, the official line goes, to give a lecture on patriotism to schoolchildren. But the more interesting story – supported by exiled sources Mikhail Zygar, founder of the independent news TV channel Dozhd, and Putin’s former speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov – was that Putin was desperate to consult the world’s most powerful shamans before escalating his war in Ukraine. Because even he “didn’t want to anger the spirits” by continuing without their blessing.

If it’s true, it’s unbelievable. A world leader who consults mystics on whether or not to deploy catastrophic weapons that could trigger World War III.

So it is perhaps not surprising that the Kremlin has issued a sharp denial: “The stated circumstances regarding the Russian President’s visit to Mongolia in September 2024 are not related to reality.”

But Putin seems to have form.

Together with Sergei Shoigu (the defense minister whom he dismissed in May), he is said to have consulted mystics before his invasion of Ukraine in 2022 – and was reportedly supported when they assured him of victory. Eight months after the war, he is said to have held two more meetings with shamans – to make sure everything was going according to plan.

And last year, Russian state media reported that Kara-ool Dopchun-ool – Russia’s “supreme shaman” – had asked “the sun, the moon and the stars” to protect Kremlin forces in Ukraine at Putin’s request.

Putin and Mongolia’s President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh attended a wreath-laying ceremony in the country’s capital Ulaanbaatar last month

This may all sound crazy to you and me. But not in Russia, where some boast that there are more occult doctors than the medical kind and that a vein of paganism, shamans and mystics goes back to the Tsarist era. The most infamous was of course Grigori Rasputin. The sex-crazed Siberian priest who somehow bewitched the family of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, slept with anyone he could lay his filthy hands on and fanned the flames of hatred for the monarchy that paved the way for the revolution of 1917. Decades later, Josef Stalin is said to have ordered a senior shaman to perform a ritual to break the Nazi siege of Stalingrad.

Soviet state-sponsored TV broadcast live shamanic healing sessions in the late 1980s, in which shamans “healed” people suffering from cancer and heart problems.

And it has long been rumored that Russian officials are inviting occultists to international talks to influence the outcome. However, not every shaman is a cheerleader for the Kremlin.

In 2019, shaman Alexander Gabyshev, 55, left Siberia for Moscow to “exorcise the demon Putin” and restore democracy. Two years later, after completing 4,200 kilometers of the 1,000-plus kilometer walk, he was arrested by Putin’s security personnel and imprisoned in a psychiatric prison, where he has been held ever since.

According to Alexander Pryanishnikov, a human rights lawyer who defended Gabyshev, the authorities are eager to lock him up because they truly believe that the shaman, far away from his country, is being deprived of his power.

And for a time, Alyona Polyn – a reality TV star and leader of a group called the Empire Of The Strongest Witches – was Putin’s “favorite witch.” No wonder. She used magic spells to boost his ratings, worked for his secret services, provided psychological support to Russian troops and their families, and collected voodoo dolls, black candles, and demonic figures.

The story goes that Putin did not want to “anger the spirits” by using catastrophic weapons in Ukraine without consulting the shamans. In the photo, a shaman performs a ritual near a poster of the Russian president in 2021

But this summer she was suddenly arrested and charged with fraud and extremism. Maybe she gave him advice he didn’t like.

Because not all of Putin’s shamanic sessions focus on his military operations. He is as obsessed with immortality, strength and anti-aging as he is with global domination.

To that end, he’s treated us to a slew of macho holiday photos over the years – usually showing him riding topless, breaking wood sticks with his bare hands, whitewater rafting or demonstrating his judo skills, mostly in Tuva.

It was also in Tuva that Putin and Shoigu – from the region – are said to have attended the shamanic ritual with a black wolf. The aim was to improve the dictator’s health – there were unconfirmed reports of a heart attack.

First the wolf was sacrificed. Then a piece of white cloth was soaked in blood and burned. And finally, a black raven circled in the smoke swirling above. All this was presented to a delighted Putin as ‘a great success’.

It was also Shoigu who is said to have introduced Putin to the benefits of massacres – which are said to promote sexual virility and slow aging. Not that there seems to be much evidence.

Putin embraced it all with enthusiasm. And a favorite blood bathing spot is a palace in the Altai Mountains, 3,800 kilometers east of Moscow, with its own deer farm where, ahead of a presidential visit, 70 kilos of deer antlers were stacked ready and waiting.

But no matter how many deer have been slaughtered and how many massacres have been committed by Putin and Alina Kabaeva (his 41-year-old gymnastics lover who is also said to be a fan), it seems they haven’t quite done their job yet.

Because in June, top Russian scientists were tasked with developing a miracle anti-aging drug that would turn back Putin’s biological clock and his increasingly gray circle. The assignment was to reduce cell deterioration, prevent cognitive and sensory disorders and strengthen the immune system. Research that would normally take years and cost billions.

“We received this article and honestly I was shocked,” said one of the researchers. ‘The message confused me. That is, now [during the war] we have to drop everything.” The misappropriation of funds was described as ‘mind-boggling’. Or downright alarming.

It’s hard to decide what’s scarier: the idea that the war in Ukraine – possibly including nuclear weapons – could be in the hands of the shamans of Siberia. Or that Putin might gradually discover the key to eternal life.