Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters
Armed men, believed to be Russian servicemen, walk outside a Ukrainian military base in Perevalnoye, near the Crimean city of Simferopol, March 14, 2014.
- A Russian
defense ministry report has said elite troops can short circuit computers with their brain waves, and read documents hidden inside a locked safe. - Telepathy and other psychic abilities were developed by working closely with Russian dolphins, the report called "Super Soldier for the Wars of the Future," said in the Armeisky Sbornik magazine.
- Russian specialists can also see into a captured enemy soldier's mind and see if he can be turned into a double-agent, it said.
- The report claims Russian soldiers used the skills during combat in Chechnya, where Russia's military was active from 1994 to 2009.
- "All this is complete nonsense," the chairman of the commission to combat pseudoscience at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yevgeny Alexandrov, said.
- Alexandrov said programs to develop psychic skills did exist, but were classified. There is no evidence the programs ever got anywhere.
Elite Russian soldiers can crash computers, treat wounded troops, and read foreign-language documents locked inside a safe using the power of their minds, a report in the Defense Ministry's official magazine claims.
Using "parapsychology," a catch-all term for any psychic ability, soldiers can detect ambushes, burn crystals, eavesdrop, and disrupt radio waves, according to a report by reserve colonel Nikolai Poroskov.
The techniques were developed over a long period staring in the 1980s Soviet Union, by studying telepathy in dolphins, the report said. It also claimed soldiers can now communicate with the dolphins.
The article, entitled "Super Soldier for the Wars of the Future," was swiftly scorned by experts. But its appearance in the February edition of the Russian defense ministry's Armeisky Sbornik (Army Collection) magazine is nonetheless remarkable.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
A Kornet-D1 mobile antitank missile complex performs during the International Army Games 2016 at the Ashuluk military polygon outside Astrakhan, Russia, August 7, 2016.
The report says: "With an effort of thought, you can, for example, shoot down computer programs, burn crystals in generators, eavesdrop on a conversation, or break television and radio programs and communications."
"Those capable of metacontact can, for example, conduct nonverbal interrogations. They can see through the captured soldier: who this person is, their strong and weak sides, and whether they're open to recruitment."
Soldiers could even "read a document in a safe even if it was in a foreign language we don't know," the report said.
Russian Ministry of Defense
The front cover of February's "Armeisky Sbornik."
Soldiers have also been trained in "psychic countermeasures," the report said - techniques which help soldiers stay strong during interrogations from telepaths in rival armies.
The report also says Russian special forces used these "combat parapsychology techniques" during the conflict in Chechnya, which ran from the mid-1990s until the late 2000s.
The chairman of the commission to combat pseudoscience at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yevgeny Alexandrov, told news outlet RBK that "combat parapsychology" is a fabrication and is recognized as a pseudo-science.
REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
Russian servicemen, dressed in historical uniforms, take part in a military parade rehearsal in Red Square in Moscow, November 1, 2013.
He said: "Such works really existed and were developed, but were classified. Now they come out into the light. But, as in many countries of the world, such studies are recognized as pseudo-scientific, all this is complete nonsense."
"All the talk about the transfer of thought at a distance does not have a scientific basis, there is not a single such recorded case, it is simply impossible."
However, Anatoly Matviychuk from Russian military magazine "Soldiers of Russia" told RBK that parapsychology is the real deal.
"The technique was developed by the Soviet Academy of Sciences in an attempt to discover the phenomenal characteristics of a person."
"A group of specialists worked under the leadership of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces. The achievements of that time still exist, and there are attempts to activate them."