by Stefano Caprio

Moldova, which is seemingly the closest target for Moscow's "hybrid war”, is headed to parliamentary elections tomorrow. Meanwhile, unidentified aircraft circling in the skies of Europe are like menacing totems, evoking the Siberian-rooted shamanism that, in today’s Russia, is one of the most radical expressions of its “defence of traditional values” against Western depravity.

Unidentified flying objects are increasingly appearing in the skies of European countries, from Poland, Denmark, and Norway to Estonia to Romania, shutting down airports and generating dark fears of a possible and unstoppable escalation of the war between Russia and the West.

NATO commanders are trying to keep a cool head, condemning these incursions as “details of a larger picture caused by Moscow's irresponsible behaviour.”

On 23 September, NATO announced the deployment of several divisions in Romania, near the border with Moldova, and that contingents from France and the United Kingdom had arrived in Odesa, Ukraine, to “control the area near Transnistria”.

Among the many targets of Russia's "hybrid war”, Moldova appears to be one of the closest and most symbolic, along with Estonia, where the Russians feel compelled to impose their "mission of salvation” on the peoples historically linked to Moscow.

Concerns about Russian influence have been dismissed in Chişinău, for “the European Union expands to welcome countries into the space of peace and prosperity.” Nevertheless, Russian interest in Moldova's future is evident, since local parliamentary elections are set for this Sunday.

The Kremlin's goal, after imposing the horror of war, is to spread fear about the future, creating further tensions throughout Europe, starting with its neighbours, and the issue in Moldova appears particularly important.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu has appealed to voters, urging them to support pro-European parties, warning that, “The Kremlin is pouring hundreds of millions of euros to buy hundreds of thousands of votes” in order to place its henchmen in power.

For their part, Russian intelligence agencies are spreading false information about the European Union's intention to "occupy Moldova," publishing statements claiming that “Brussels Eurocrats have every intention of keeping Moldovans on the path of Russophobic politics.”

Russia's most high-profile propagandist, television host Vladimir Solovyov, has levelled accusations of vote-buying against Sandu, stating that “she managed to become president by buying 300,000 votes, which, for a population of three million, is not a bad percentage.”

From Russia, exiled Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor continues to foment a campaign of opposition to the president and the government in Chişinău, with a network of parties that are regularly dissolved and then reformed under other guises, and rumours of a "European occupation" of Moldova are increasingly fuelling a generalised conflict between pro- and anti-Russia citizens in all EU countries.

Putin openly accuses NATO of “threatening strategic stability”; for this reason, the treaty with the US on strategic weapons will not be renewed in February. Speaking during a meeting of Russia’s Security Council in Moscow, the Russian president said: “Russia is fully capable of responding to any current or emerging threat, not with words, but through concrete military-technical measures.”

For Prof Alexander Astrov of the Central European University, “Europe doesn't really exist,” for Putin. “He divides the world between Russia and America based on military and technological potential; the rest is just talk;” hence, Europeans "can go smoke in the hallway, while Vladimir and Donald agree on the important things."

A truly "transatlantic alliance" no longer exists; indeed, a line of agreement no longer concerns Europe, but rather brings together directly Moscow and Washington, from the West and the East, as evinced by the Putin-Trump meeting in Alaska.

According to psychologist and publicist Kira Merkun, the evolution of “threats from the sky” to Europe is further proof of the depth of Putin's ideology, which has a religious underpinning that depends as much on Christian Orthodoxy as it does on "shamanic paganism”, on the need to find elements that inspire fear and affirm the prevalence of dark forces.

Today's Russia is well represented by two symbolic figures: the singer Shaman, author of the national rock anthem "Ya Russkiy!", "I am Russian and I will go all the way," and Yakutian shaman-turned-oppositionist Alexander Gabishchev, who for years threatened to travel to Moscow to cast a curse on Putin, ending up in a mental hospital for his trouble.

Shamanism, which in Russia is recognised as one of the smaller "traditional religions" after Orthodoxy, and towards which Putin has repeatedly shown a certain sympathy, is based on the waving of threatening totems, which the anonymous drones fluttering around represent with remarkable effectiveness.

Even Russia’s new aviation and cosmonautics manuals contain chapters on shamanism, since the experience of shamans evidently helps connect with the Universe, fostering the success of new technological projects.

Marxism-Leninism also played a major role in the space adventures of Soviet aviators, and Moscow is dominated by totemic figures like Lenin's Mausoleum in Red Square and the towering monument to Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, which opens onto the grandiose Leninsky Prospekt, the capital's longest and most solemn avenue, which points in the direction of Ukraine.

Schools of shamanic doctrine exist across Siberia, in the ethnically Mongol republics (regions) of Tuva and Buryatia, but also in Yakutia and the Altai region, bordering China, where one can enrol either by birth or by "inner calling”.

While in Moscow and St Petersburg, anti-aircraft defence systems are being perfected against the “cursed drones” from Ukraine, in Siberia and the Russian Far East, shamans are working to repel evil spirits, protecting the mineral and precious stone deposits that are crucial to Russia’s faltering economy.

The exaltation of shamanism is one of the most radical expressions of the "defence of traditional values" against Western depravity, and it easily fits in with the solemn rituals of Orthodoxy.

At the end of the summer, a gigantic shamanic festival, known as Sayanskoye Koltso, "Sayan Ring," is held in Shushenskoye, a village in the southern Siberian krai (territory) of Krasnoyarsk, at the confluence of the Shush and Yenisei rivers, where Lenin spent some  years in exile before becoming the leader of the revolution.

After the death of the leader of the world proletariat, a memorial museum, "Lenin's Siberian Exile," was created in the village where he lived from 1897 to 1900 and where he married Natalia Krupskaya, but in a rite that is not known.

The site covers 6.6 hectares of land and features 200 exhibits of various kinds. It recounts the life, activities, and even the "beliefs" of Vladimir Ilyich, in harmony with the residents of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  

Indeed, Lenin later praised the "simplicity, energy, and dedication" of the poor people of rich Siberia, who inspired him to defend the classes oppressed by global capitalism.

In this sense, shamanism can also well represent certain ideological continuity between the Soviet empire and Putin's Russia, an archaic form of natural religiosity.

It is no accident that the symbol of "United Russia," Putin's party, is the Siberian bear, the totemic animal of the peoples of Asian Russia, and the party's chairman is Putin's overexcited dauphin, Dmitry Medvedev, whose surname means "Bear” in Russian.

The latter regularly casts ritual curses on the entire world, a living testament to the Russian proverb that "one resigns as president, but never as a priest”. As Merkun notes, “he gets drunk and rampages, fomenting aggression among his tribe.”

Even Lenin, in the woods near the Shush River, devoted himself to wild activities, developing a passion for hunting and proudly ordering not just any Tula double-barrelled shotgun, but a weapon from the Belgian company Auguste Francotte. Until the end of his days, he enjoyed shooting animals.

Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Chernenko, and Yeltsin were also avid hunters, like the new totemic figure Vladimir Putin, who roams the Tuvan steppes with his friend Sergei Shoigu in search of wild beasts, and loves launching and shooting down the drones of Russia's new universal religion. The only Soviet-Russian leaders not seen handling rifles were Andropov and Gorbachev, both natives of the Ukrainian lands.

In Russian, the verb shamanit means "to sow confusion" in the manner of shamans, which appears to have been coined first by the shamans of Alaska, a land particularly dear to Russians, especially Putin, given the universal chaos he is causing after visiting it.

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• russia
• moscow
• vladimir putin
• moldova
• mara sandu
• drones
• shamanism
• siberia
• lenin
• drones
• guns