The “spirit” of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the late firebrand founder of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party, has resurfaced with fresh predictions of nuclear war, U.S. collapse and a strong recommendation to start planting potatoes — at least according to a pro-Kremlin tabloid.
Komsomolskaya Pravda on Monday published what it openly described as an “un-Christian” interview with a psychic, Anna Pechuyeva, and her assistant, Anna Ilyina, who claimed to have summoned Zhirinovsky’s spirit by burning a 100-ruble note.
Zhirinovsky’s old speeches regularly circulate online, often framed as eerily “prophetic.” His incendiary State Duma speech in December 2021 went viral for predicting the date and time of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine with near-perfect precision.
Among his alleged spirit’s predictions in the Komsomolskaya Pravda séance-meets-interview was that Russia and Ukraine will reach some kind of peace agreement this fall, though the war itself will drag on until 2027.
Ukraine, the spirit warned, will be “sliced up like a pie,” while the United States will collapse “like the Soviet Union,” breaking into smaller states.
“He says Trump won’t be in power for long. There will be an attempt on his life, from someone close to him, a retired high-ranking military officer. It’s already in the works,” the psychic Pechuyeva claimed Zhirinovsky’s spirit told her.
The spirit reassured that the conflict in Ukraine would not lead to World War III, saying: “It’s all been decided long ago. They just aren’t telling people yet.”
But the war in the Middle East is apparently a different story.
According to Zhirinovsky’s alleged spirit, the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran could see the use of nuclear bombs, devastation for Israel, as well as huge refugee flows to Russia and ensuing ethnic tensions.
In between geopolitical forecasts, the message took a practical turn. Twice, the spirit urged Russians to plant potatoes as a kind of Russian-style doomsday prepping.
“You’ll need them,” the spirit allegedly told Pechuyeva.
Zhirinovsky died at age 75 in April 2022, shortly after Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Komsomolskaya Pravda interview, published to coincide with the fourth anniversary of Zhirinovsky’s death, comes amid a reported revival of occult and spiritual practices in Russia amid the war.
In December, President Vladimir Putin, who has previously heaped praise on the tabloid for its journalistic work, called the occult “nonsense” and accused it of misleading the public.
“They’re driving people into a dark corner, literally and figuratively,” he said.
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