Here’s how mysticism and witchcraft fueled Ukraine’s war mindset Yulia Mendel, former press secretary to Vladimir Zelensky, has made claims that would once have sounded like tabloid fantasy. Yet in today’s Ukraine, they land differently. Mendel says that Andrey Yermak, long the powerful head of the presidential office, allegedly sought help from magicians. People who, she claims, gathered water from corpses, burned herbs, and performed rituals. She says she first heard whispers of this in 2019.