Ukrainian journalists made the “Canadian expert” Fikret Shabanov a YouTube star. Heʼs not actually Canadian and not an expert, but a conspiracy theorist who believes in the fictional country of Lemuria

Who is Fikret Shabanov?

Little is known about the biography of Fikret Shabanov. And mostly from his words. Shabanov is 53 years old, according to the British register of legal entities, he is a citizen of Azerbaijan. Shabanov says that in 1992 he graduated from the Azerbaijan State Pedagogical University in Baku, having obtained the specialty of "teacher of history, philosophy and law". There he finished his postgraduate studies and wrote his candidateʼs thesis on the topic "Establishment and determination of priorities of the foreign policy of Azerbaijan (1990-1995)". In the interview, he also said that he has a law degree, and on his Facebook page, access to which he restricted after "Babel" asked him questions, he wrote that he now lives in Vancouver, Canada, but often comes to Baku.

Shabanov presents himself as the president of the Canadian analytical center “Consultations on international policy and economy”. There is no mention of such an analytical center on the Internet, there are no links to it or pages in social networks. "Babel" asked Shabanov why. He refused to answer the question, calling it biased, but immediately published the answer on his Telegram channel: "My organization is a closed commercial structure that conducts system analytics on behalf of the employer. World-renowned experts are invited, all of them work remotely. All materials are the private property of the customer."

Azerbaijani political scientist Ilgar Velizade told "Babel" that Shabanov is known in his homeland, but he rarely appears in the local media. Ravshan Nazarov, a senior researcher at the Institute of State and Law of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, met Shabanov at one of the scientific conferences as a specialist from the Caucasus, the Middle East and Central Asia. But neither Velizade nor Nazarov know about Shabanovʼs analytical center, nor about where he acquired knowledge of such a broad profile. In Shabanovʼs social networks, there is also no data about his research or scientific works.

He regularly meets various officials. For example, in his Instagram, among hundreds of photos of oriental dishes, there is a photo with the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Tofik Zulfugarov. There is also an archival photo from 2003 with Abdugafur Abdurakhmanov, the ambassador of Uzbekistan to Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

In 2019, Shabanov posted a photo with the Iraqi Minister of Health and added that he was also at a meeting with the Prime Minister. Another story connects him with Iraq: his signature is under the letter of the Iraqi Democratic Party of Kurdistan condemning the attacks of the Kurdistan Workersʼ Party and Peshmerga units.

There should have been a link to Shabanovʼs Instagram page. But on September 29, 2023, after “Babel” asked him questions, Shabanov deleted the page.

How did Shabanov appear in Ukraine?

Shabanov gave one of the first interviews to the Russian portal Regnum in 2015. Then he commented on security and politics in the countries of Central Asia and the Middle East.

In 2020, Shabanov took part in the conference "The viral impact of COVID-19 as a reality of a global catastrophe: new scenarios of political turns and economic disasters." It was organized by the Kazakh "East-West International Center for Geopolitical Forecasting". It was during the pandemic that Shabanov made his first conspiracy statements. He called the pandemic artificial and fabricated. In his opinion, the "authors of the managed crisis" wanted to solve problems in the economy and ecology thanks to COVID-19, to speed up the transition to the fourth industrial revolution. Shabanov called the pandemic a global operation of "natural selection". According to him, the crisis was calculated for five years with a possible recurrence in two or three years. Later, in an interview with Nataliia Moseichuk, he stated that people with the fourth blood group do not get coronavirus.

On August 30, 2022, Shabanov appeared in the Ukrainian media on the YouTube channel of the co-founder of the analytical center "Ukrainian Institute of the Future" Yury Romanenko. Later, he explained that he met Shabanov "through acquaintances in the oil business who crossed paths with him."

In the caption to the first video, Romanenko wrote that Shabanov is "the coolest specialist in international relations, particularly from the Middle East and Central Asia," and gives phenomenally accurate forecasts. Since then, four major conversations with Shabanovʼs participation have aired on the Romanenko channel, the last one in April 2023. Each has received hundreds of thousands of views.

After conversations with Romanenko, Shabanov began to regularly appear in other YouTube projects. Namely, he gave an interview to Nataliya Moseichuk twice, appeared on Dmytro Gordon, "Now" and "News Factory" channels. Shabanov also appeared on the broadcasts of "Da eto tak" and blogger Oleksandr Shelest. His interviews received hundreds of thousands, sometimes a million views. After "Babel" turned to Shabanov with questions about his expertise, he unexpectedly stated that he did not receive money for his interviews with the Ukrainian mass media (though we did not ask about this).

In March 2023, Shabanov created his own YouTube (now it has 46 thousand subscribers) and Telegram channels (23 thousand followers). He distributes at least a dozen of news a day on Telegram, mostly on international politics and Asia.

What is he talking about?

Picture of the world by Fikret Shabanov

Shabanov comments on many issues: geopolitics, economy, world history, the course of hostilities, religious issues. The most popular interviews have sensational headlines: "Ukraine will be put under the knife", "The map of Ukraine will be rewritten", "The USA will enter Siberia".

From Shabanovʼs various statements, one can gather his "picture of the world." He believes that all countries are externally controlled by secret global elites. This is done by three organizations: the Club of Rome, the Tripartite Commission and the Bilderberg Club. The latter allegedly includes two structures that have the greatest influence on the world. The first is Anglo-Americans, which is connected with "world Jewish capital", and the second is the Vatican. In particular, under the power of Vatican are the European Union, because it is a "club of Christian monarchies", and Ukraine. Shabanov also claimed that "Celts" and people "with a certain blood group and a certain genetic code" influence world politics. However, according to his version, the Celts come from Iraq.

"The Vatican has complete control over your country. Your public figures say they came from the Vatican. These people [connected with the Vatican] represent the government, the elite and have access to state secrets that moderate your war... Ukraine has an external administration — I call it Vatican administration," Shabanov stated in an interview with Moseichuk.

According to Shabanov, Ukrainian public figures are also connected with the Vatican. His proof is the fact that Zelenskyy received the Legion of Honor from the hands of the French president. In an interview with Natalia Moseichuk, Shabanov explained that it is actually a "Franco-Masonic" order. And the Vatican, handing it over to Zelenskyi, declares that "this is our country, our territory."

Shabanov considers the control of the American corporation ConverDyn over the nuclear industry of Ukraine to be another sign of external governance. Where do these conclusions come from? All because "Energoatom" wants to produce nuclear fuel with this corporation, signed a confidentiality agreement and a memorandum on uranium processing.

Predictions about the war in Ukraine

Shabanov looks pessimistically at the course of the war with Russia and the future of Ukraine. First of all, aid to Ukraine will be curtailed, the war will be frozen, and Ukraine itself will not decide anything on this issue.

"The Ukrainian war is a tool [for the US] to solve issues in Eastern Europe: declare Russia an enemy of humanity, cut off its economic resources from Europe, empty the pockets of Europeans, tie the entire EU energy system to the US and clean out all the European armies, transfer them to Ukraine, Shabanov told Natalia Moseichuk in April 2023.

Shabanov believes that despite heroism and resistance, Ukraine will not win the war. According to him, around 2025 — after the elections in the USA, Europe and the Russian Federation — the war will end according to the "peace in exchange for territory" scheme. However, it is not up to Ukraine to decide, because the war is "only a detail in the reformatting of the world, which must be completed by 2035."

"I do not think that you will be able to go to the borders of 1991 and, conditionally, return Crimea. Because your elite continues the policy of the Vatican, which is a direct threat to the Saxons," said Shabanov to Moseichuk.

Global political forecasts

Fikret Shabanov likes to make predictions for specific dates. Several things, in his opinion, were supposed to happen on July 17, 2023. We do not understand the logic of his thoughts, so we quote him in full.

"On July 17, maybe there will be something in Zaporizhzhia [nuclear power plant] or something with nuclear weapons. Because the American doctrine of national security allows the conduct of a nuclear war outside the territories of the United States and Russia, on the territory of a third country. Regarding the pressure with which the Chinese push the division of the world, most likely, they will not come to an agreement," said Shabanov in the same interview with Moseichuk in April.

After the incident with nuclear weapons, according to the "expert", there should have been a change of president in Russia, who would have signed an alliance with Great Britain against China.

"No matter how scary it sounds to you. After the nuclear tinkering on July 17, it will be necessary to get rid of the leader of Russia. A person born in 1972 will appear who will sign the documents on the division of the world. Because the Americans need a front line against China," Shabanov claimed.

When the nuclear apocalypse did not happen, the "expert" clarified that it will definitely happen if Ukraine receives F-16 aircraft and ATACMS missiles. We asked Shabanov why this prediction did not come true.

"On July 6, a nuclear provocation was announced by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine and the entire military-political leadership of the country — first of all, we need to ask them where this date came from and why it did not happen," he answered.

Fikret Shabanov also makes long-term forecasts. By 2027, in his opinion, the borders of not only Ukraine, but also the EU should change. Why? Because in 2025-2026 there will be a "slaughterhouse" between the USA and China. "They [the US] are closing China in the Pacific Ocean, they will cut off the supply of oil and gas from Iran and Saudi Arabia. We will still see the independence of Corsica," Shabanov assured on the air in Moseichuk.

Where does Shabanov get these forecasts and dates? "This is mathematics, no occultism, because there are certain stages in the completion of political processes," he said to Moseichuk. According to him, he builds forecasts on "real world analytics."

Shabanov makes almost all his predictions against the background of the same carpet. Viewers of his interviews were often ironic about this. Shabanov answered: "A warring country is full of the spirit of Nazism, lack of culture and, of course, the animal instinct of a disease of a superior race."

What does Russian propaganda have to do with this?

Every day, Shabanov publishes and reposts dozens of posts in Telegram. In particular, he regularly shares the posts of the Russian blogger Anatoly Nesmiyan. Shabanov also published the posts of the Russian propagandist Igor Korotchenko nine times. In particular, he spread his threat regarding a tactical nuclear strike after the attack on the Headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol.

Shabanov personally did not speak in favor of Russia in his interviews and said many times that he supports Ukraine. However, his statements were repeatedly quoted by Russian propagandists. The Russian "Ukraine.ru" published the statements of the "expert" eight times. Like the ones that that Ukraine is a pawn in a big game, the war is only an element in the reconstruction of the world, and the West is pushing Zelenskyy to negotiate with Russia and seeks to freeze the war. His statement that Ukraine cannot win was spread by the Russian local publication "Ves Iskitim" and a number of Russian groups in VKontakte social network.

Yuriy Romanenko, who actually brought Shabanov into the world of Ukrainian media, explained his relationship with him as follows: in the first three shows he gave him a chance to talk all he has to tell, and on the fourth he already opposed him. After that, in a separate broadcast, Romanenko refuted Shabanovʼs statements.

"A number of theses he developed were at least controversial... I donʼt believe in the Celts who were in Iraq," said Romanenko. Shabanov called this statement an attempt to discredit him and added that special services were involved there.

What is Shabanovʼs business?

Shabanovʼs page on the Xing social network states that he owns the company Royal Shaban Holding. A search of the Canadian SEDAR registry and the British Columbia registry did not reveal any such company. But in 2017, Shabanov registered Shaban Holding in Scotland. What it does is unknown. From the registration documents, it can only be understood that the company is related to wholesale trade.

In 2017, the general partner of Shabanovʼs firm was an offshore Brennan Development Inc., registered in Belize. This firm is mentioned in the Bellingcat investigation into large-scale money laundering schemes in Great Britain.

Bellingcat found that in 2015-2019 in Scotland through Brennan development Inc. and several more companies created hundreds of shell companies that were used to launder money. These empty firms operated gambling sites, traded cryptocurrency, were brokers, engaged in unregulated forex trading and binary options.

In 2019, new partners appeared in Shaban Holding — offshore Peratt Consult Inc. and Redshift Prism Corp. from the Seychelles. However, through the owner, Lithuanian citizen Kyril Pestuns, the companies are related to Brennan Development Inc., so in reality, apparently, nothing has changed.

In 2021, Shabanovʼs company was renamed SL030680LP, but in 2022 the name was returned to Shaban Holding. Shabanov officially owned it from 2018 to 2019, but it still bears his surname. Shabanov himself stated in Telegram that the company has not been working for four years.

On September 29, 2023, during the preparation of the article, "Babel" contacted Fikret Shabanov and sent him questions. He called via Facebook Messenger and said the questions were biased and similar to those typically asked by investigators. Later, he posted questions on his Telegram channel and vaguely answered some of them. He gave advice to "Babel" journalists: "SBU, Chekists and political adventurers of various stripes, improve your qualifications."

After that, Fikret Shabanov began to disappear from social networks — he deleted his Instagram account and restricted access to his Facebook page. Though when we were preparing the article for publication, Fikret Shabanov announced the interview he gave to Dmytro Gordon in his Telegram channel. It is about "various format events in Ukraine and abroad.”

Translated from Ukrainian by Anton Semyzhenko.

There will never be fake experts and their conspiracy theories on Babel. However, there will be revelations and investigations about them. Support us: 🔸 in hryvnia , 🔸 in cryptocurrency , 🔸 Patreon , 🔸 PayPal: [email protected]