The Russian army has trained "psychic" special forces to use telepathy in combat, according to the country's defence ministry.

A report published in the official magazine of the Russian Ministry of Defence, Armeysky Sbornik (Army Digest), explains that fighters are taught to "defeat the enemy with non-contact methods" by training with dolphins.

"Parapsychological" skills were perfected by soldiers while fighting in Chechnya, the article said.

Parapsychology is the study of paranormal and psychic phenomena, including clairvoyance and telepathy.

Image: The magazine the report appears in. Pic: Armeysky Sbornik

Telepathy can be used for commanding foreign languages, the report claims, and can reduce the amount of pain felt by a wounded colleague and locate caches of enemy weapons.


Non-verbal interrogation is also apparently possible through telepathy.

"Fighters can see right through the enemy soldier: what kind of person they are, what their weak and strong sides are and whether they can be recruited [as a spy]," the magazine said.

"The veracity of interrogation is practically 100%."

Experiments are said to have been carried out - such as trying to read documents in a foreign language that have been locked inside a safe.

The article adds: "By force of thought, it is possible to shut down computer programmes, burn crystals in generators, listen in on conversations and disrupt radio and telecommunications."

But Yevgeny Aleksandrov, who chairs the Russian Academy of Science's committee for combating "false science", told Russian news outlet RBK that the parapsychological war tactics were "complete rubbish".

"Such research did indeed exist and was developed in the past but it was made secret. Now it's being brought out into the light again but such research is recognised as a false science," he said.