Leaked Russian memo outlines readiness for enemy mind control

Among other strategies the Russians believe the enemy may employ include “psychocorrecting games” and “computer psyviruses.”

Fearless reporting, a behind-the-curtains look at how journalism is made — and an unabashed point of view. Welcome to Chills.

---

Russian Federal Guard Service officers at the Victory Day Parade in Red Square in May. (Photo by Contributor/Getty Images)

A leaked, secret draft memo outlines how the Russian Federal Guard Service (FSO), which protects high-ranking officials like President Putin, would make the transition to wartime — and it is truly something to behold.

Published by Russian news outlet The Insider, the draft outlines preparations for a potential “mass ideological attack.” But the specifics of the memo show that the Russian government believes there is the possibility that an enemy will use hypnosis and psychic powers, among other bizarro-world tactics.

The leaked draft stresses that Russia’s enemies are wily, thus forcing the military to take strong measures to combat any cunning plans. According to the memo, the FSO would attempt to diminish the enemy’s psychological stability and “moral orientation,” and “bring them to a state of unwillingness to resist.” (NB: All of the memo’s quotations here are in translation.) Officials appear to be mainly worried about the potential corruption of the Russian mind through psychically controlled TV, radio, print media, social media, books, brochures, leaflets and posters. Also, they fear that foreign spies may use NGOs and religious — and “pseudo-religious” — organizations to manipulate the families of agents.

A source in Kyiv told me that when he first read the report, he figured it was Ukrainian propaganda — that’s how absurd it sounds. But The Insider is a well-respected investigative newspaper known for calling out Russia propaganda and debunking fake news. It was given the Council of Europe Forum Democracy Award in 2017.

The outlet reports that the deputy director of the FSO, Gen. Alexander Komov, is responsible for the ultimate implementation of the secret plan should it be needed. In 2021, General Komov took part in a conference organized by the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences about the possibility of spying on Earth from space. He also apparently leads a group of freelance advisers that includes astrologers, black magicians and psychics. 

My source told me that the Russian government believes in mysticism, astrology, numerology, psychics “and all that stuff.” As far back as 1988, The New York Times reported, “Horoscopes, folk medicine, psychic healing and all manner of mysticism occupy a prominent place in Soviet society, part faith, part fad, but no joke.”

In the event of war breaking out on Russian soil, the memo says that soldiers must visit the Hall of Fame and History of the FSO in the Kremlin and make an excursion to Moscow’s Cathedral of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.

The leaked memo makes clear that in wartime, Kremlin guards must be “prepared for the psychological infection of personnel” as well as the possibility that they may be hypnotized. It even suggests that “psychologically vulnerable” officers should be hospitalized.

Among other strategies the Russians believe the enemy may employ include “psychocorrecting games,” “computer psyviruses” and “chemical and biological” psychological influence.

To translate the translation:

• Psychocorrection, the best I can tell, is meant to “correct” the development of young children, often using dolls, and may include experimental psychology. How this would function in the immunization of government officials against enemy mind control is beyond me.

• “Computer psyviruses,” “whatever those are,” as The Insider put it, are — thankfully! — an unlikely source of foreign corruption if only because the Kremlin guards are forbidden from using cell phones or tablets while on duty.

• As for “chemical and biological” psychological influence, your guess is as good as mine.

There have been rumors since the Cold War that the Russians have long been deadly earnest in their experimentation with woo-woo mind control. (And, of course, during the Cold War, the U.S. responded in kind with a secretive psychic project of its own.)

A Russian memo declassified in 2019 said that, in the 1980s, scientists experimented with extrasensory perception (ESP) and other psychic abilities. And in 2017, a Russian military journal declared that the country’s soldiers have psychic powers — and that they had used them before. The best part? The soldiers have purportedly learned how to read thoughts from telepathic dolphins. But it isn’t all just Flipper-imparted mind control. The article’s author, an army colonel, wrote that the telepathic soldiers also are able to jam communications signals and crash computers with their thoughts.

But not to worry: In the event of a war, the generals say that they have methods to psychically strengthen their army — through the use of counter-suggestion and weekly political classes — and that they would work to identify FSO officers with “an unstable psyche” and “inadequate” reaction time. 

In the meantime, the Russians are plenty busy fighting a war not on their own soil. So the Kremlin guards, for now, can keep their psychic abilities tucked in their back pockets, ready and waiting a for the inevitable day in which they will, finally, unleash their tremendous mystical powers.

---

Chills is self-funded, without ads. If you want to be a part of this effort, of revealing how difficult reporting is made — of sending me to places like Ukraine to report for you — I hope you will consider subscribing for $50/year or $7/month.