Pro-Russian Telegram channels are spreading information that the commander of the 154th separate mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Shcherbyna, allegedly uses the services of a Ukrainian fortune teller, Mariia Tykha. According to the propagandists, before being sent to the front line, the soldiers of the 154th brigade can allegedly “find out their fate” for an additional fee, on average up to a thousand hryvnia. The fortune teller predicts a successful operation, from which they will definitely emerge unharmed.

In fact, this is a fake, the VoxCheck project reports. There is no evidence that Mariia Tykha provides services to the commander of the 154th separate mechanized brigade, Oleksandr Shcherbyna. He has never mentioned any fortune tellers on his social media pages.

In addition, the primary source of this information is the pro-Russian Telegram channel Ukropskyi Fresh, whose messages regularly discredit the Ukrainian military.

Mariia Tykha is indeed involved in astrology, extrasensory perception, and calls herself a witch. On various YouTube channels, the woman thinks about upcoming Russian shelling on Tarot cards, predicts a “Maidan” in Moscow, the end of the war, etc. But not all of her predictions come true. Both astrology and extrasensory perception are pseudoscience, and predictions from such pseudo-experts are not supported by facts, VoxCheck adds.

Earlier, we recorded a fake about the SBU allegedly detaining tarologists, fortune tellers and psychics who predict Russia's military successes.