"The USA is about to pop like a soap bubble." What fortune tellers predict for Russia and how Russian propaganda uses them in its operations
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Prophecies, strategically disseminated in the Russian information space, align with the theses of Kremlin propaganda, revealing the insidious nature of Russian propaganda tactics.
After the pandemic and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the market for esoterics in Russia has grown significantly — panicked people spend money on "clairvoyants" and "psychics". After all, it is pretty predictable because the societal interest in mysticism always increases in crisis and war. However, Russian propaganda uses "prophecies" to spread its disinformation. Detector Media (DM) aims to analyze why Russia resorts to this method, what theses it promotes through "clairvoyants," and how Ukrainians (un)consciously play along with this tactic.
When the propagandists run out of ideas, they resort to a hidden trump up their sleeve — the predictions of the Bulgarian healer Vanga. There is almost a cult of personality around her in Russia, which is explained, according to Bulgarian fact-checkers from the WebCafe portal, by the fact that her "predictions" usually have a pronounced pro-Russian orientation. There are countless publications and films about a blind Bulgarian woman in Russia, including the more than ten-year-old series "Vangelia", which became, according to Bulgarian professor Ivail Dichev, one of the most successful projects of the Russian state’s First Channel. Since Vanga’s "prophecies", similar to all other "seers", are incredibly vague, they can be easily interpreted according to Moscow’s needs.
Bulgarian researchers draw attention to the fact that, for example, in one of the Russian channel's "documentaries" about Vanga's "predictions," she is credited with the following words: "Tsars in Ukraine will change like handkerchiefs. Funny green man will turn Ukraine into ruins. The state will disappear. Punishments will not be applied." The exact "prediction" claims that allegedly nothing will be able to stop Russia, and it will become the world's ruler. However, after a thorough check, Bulgarian experts discovered that Vanga did not actually say such words. They refer to her 1979 statement: "Everything will melt like ice, but the glory of Volodymyr will remain intact." The film claims that the seer allegedly sees Vladimir Putin as the ruler of the world, but it could also be, for example, Vladimir Lenin, whose rule Vanga must have studied as a child, or even Prince of Kyivan Rus Volodymyr the Great.
The authors at WebCafe write: Between the 1970s and 1980s, when some Kremlin officials visited Petrich (the village where Vanga lived), Vanga was asked to make not only personal predictions but those concerning the future of humanity. It was then that her first pro-Russian "prophecies" appeared. Moreover, Professor Dichev states in a comment for Deutsche Welle that Vanga did not record her visions, meaning her phrases were interpreted by at least several people.
"Prosperity awaits Russia"
Russia disseminates anti-Ukrainian narratives in materials about "predictions," purportedly quoting other Russian and foreign fortune tellers. Some of them publicly express their support for the Russian regime and its actions, including the "Putin's witches." This refers to the occult organization named "Empire of the Strongest Witches," led by a fortune teller with the pseudonym Aliona Polyn. Since 2019, this organization has been conducting rituals in support of Putin personally and the Russian military.
In articles and YouTube videos with comments from fortune tellers and psychics, which have views ranging from 46,000 to over 8 million, the same message is repeated: Russia cannot be stopped because it awaits a period of flourishing. According to them, Russia has entered a "positive dynamic" and a new phase of its existence; thus, it will emerge from the "crisis situation" stronger. One psychic even compared Russia to the folkloric hero Ilya Muromets, claiming that Russia, too, has long been sitting on the stove, enduring all sorts of ridicule, but when it comes to self-defense, it does so quite skillfully.
Furthermore, these "seers" talk about an industrial "boom" in Russia and a "stable development of the economy," allegedly unaffected by sanctions and which will lead to an influx of foreigners moving to the country "for a better life" in five years. They also claim that Russia is supposedly the "safest country in the world" because it can defend itself adequately. Additionally, prophets in the pro-Russian segment of social networks "tell" that Russia is destined to win, and there will be "hysteria" in Kyiv over this victory. According to them, it is all because the Mother of God protects Russia.
These are the same theses that Russian propaganda pushes without the involvement of fortune tellers and psychics. Moreover, some of them do not hide the synchrony of their theses with propaganda and perceive their "predictions" as assistance to the regime, like the above-mentioned Aliona Polyn, who, incidentally, was arrested in June for books calling for violence against the Russian Orthodox Church.
Additionally, covering things up with something spiritual and unexplainable is also one of the tactics frequently used by Russian propagandists. By utilizing religion, they aim to justify Russia's aggression against Ukraine, claiming that Ukraine has embarked on a path of hell and spiritual emptiness because it supports "Western immorality" and suppresses the right to free worship. Thus, Russia supposedly needs to fight for the values of the whole world, as the "seers" also declare. While other forms of disinformation at least attempt to manipulate facts, in this case, there is no need even for that, as facts are unnecessary for prophecies.
"Ukraine will cease to exist"
According to the "seers," the outcome of Russia's victory should be the complete decline and disintegration of Ukraine. Within this theme, the "prophets" repeat a whole set of propagandistic clichés: that Ukrainians will "joyfully welcome Russians with flags," and a significant part of Ukraine’s territory will go to Russia, while other "pieces" will supposedly go to Poland, Hungary, and Romania. Allegedly, Wolf Messing also mentioned the "expansion of Russia's borders" at the expense of Ukraine. However, verifying whether this was actually the case is quite tricky, as the person who stated this on one of the federal channels emphasized that he supposedly said this in a personal conversation before his death.
The "seers" also spread messages about a "fratricidal" and "civil" war, obscuring Russia's responsibility for invading other states, where it is the primary aggressor. Moreover, the "psychics" propagate the assumption that with new territories, Russia will gain "extremely aggressively minded people against itself," falsely claiming that the Ukrainian government is supposedly conducting a "Nazi and Russophobic" policy. Consequently, according to the "prophets," these people will organize a real "guerrilla war" in Russia, along with numerous "sabotages" and "terrorist attacks." This is also one of the statements used by the Russian government, accusing Ukraine of committing several terrorist attacks against civilians in Russia over the past months despite direct evidence linking Islamist groups to them.
Russian "psychics" mock their Ukrainian counterparts, who supposedly predicted the emergence of a "new president" who will "fix everything," using the propaganda "third person" tactic. They imply that no matter who the president is in Ukraine, it's all just "feeding with promises," while Russia's success is supposedly entirely realistic. Propagandistic "seers" predict a complete decline for Ukraine and a total deterioration in relations with the West—claiming that no matter who wins the presidential elections in the USA, this person will supposedly not support Ukraine.
These "psychics" also devalue Ukraine's role, asserting that, in reality, peace will supposedly be "negotiated directly by the United States of America and Russia." They describe Ukraine as a country "between two rocks" that will "crush it." Among these predictions, some indicate Ukraine's future accession to the EU, but they explain this as a "loss of sovereignty" because supposedly all EU member states "lose their sovereignty" upon joining. Thus, according to these "seers," no matter what Ukraine does, everything that happens to it will be wrong in contrast to Russia.
These "psychics" also do not shy away from discussing Volodymyr Zelenskyy, asserting that supposedly "large-scale protests" against the President of Ukraine will begin in August because "this is what the oligarchs want." Essentially, these "seers" serving Russian propaganda claim all these repeatedly debunked theses without any substantial evidence or facts.
A "geopolitical catastrophe" for the West
Propagandists also do not refrain from mocking their competitors and expressing support for their allies. Federal channels in programs featuring "psychics" assert that Europe will inevitably collapse. The "Anglo-Saxons" are supposedly "losing dominance," and they are guaranteed to face "political and economic upheavals." The "prophets" demonize Ukraine's allies, labeling them as "global evil" and spreading anti-globalist conspiracy theories. Even the rise in egg prices in Russia a few months ago was called a "strike by the West." Conversely, according to them, China is on the path to becoming the most powerful state in the world (even though, ultimately, Russia is supposed to become the greatest country in the world according to these prophecies).
There are other materials—where neither the war nor its participants are mentioned directly, but their authors point to the "East vs. West confrontation," which they claim is "decisive" for the world, calling for "the swiftest peace." According to the "psychics," the United States will not even exist. In this way, they attempt to reinforce the theses above and the broader propaganda narratives.
The Balkan flavor
Propagandists focus heavily on the Balkan region’s representatives and their statements. Besides Vanga from Bulgaria, they have given considerable attention to the predictions of the Serbian "seer" Verica Obrenovic, who died in 2019 and supposedly made numerous predictions long before the events mentioned in them occurred. They emphasize the geopolitical themes of her forecasts and claim that this "seer" once worked in the intelligence services. Many Balkan politicians, who supposedly "made important decisions based on her prophecies," sought her prophecies.
Her "predictions" were made to include almost all the clichés of Russian propaganda relevant to the Balkan region. For instance, in 2012, Obrenovic supposedly predicted the "peaceful" annexation of Crimea. Later, she allegedly prophesied that Russia and the BRICS countries "will determine the future of the world." She did not leave other countries out—according to her, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania will want to reunite with Russia, seeing its success and facing their issues, while the United Kingdom will break up into "England and Scotland" and protests will engulf France. The Serbian supposedly predicted that a "new union" would replace the European Union and that Serbia and several other non-EU countries would join it, but EU member states would not be part of this "new union" due to their "economic crisis."
The creators of the video about her "accidentally" mentioned that among the Balkan states, only Croatia and Slovenia are currently in the EU, but there and in other EU countries, people will soon "buy food using credit funds." NATO will supposedly only consist of the USA, but even America will not last long, as it will "pop like a soap bubble," and the dollar will "cease to be the world currency." The propagandists assert that the "seer" called Russia "the most powerful country in the world" and Russia's war against Ukraine is a "battle that decides the fate of the entire world." They aim to convince people that, according to the "seer’s" opinion, Ukraine "will become part of Russia" and "lose its sovereignty in 2024."
Russian propagandists "leave" their audience with such "seer’s" quotes —"God supports Russia" because, in Ukraine, there are "many American biological laboratories". Finally, according to them, Russia, Belarus, and Bulgaria will supposedly form a union of brotherly nations, as Vanga once said. However, whether she really said this, as with the "Serbian seer," is not definitively known—propagandists can tailor content to their goals and provide "false translations" betting on the fact that their audience is not proficient in Serbian or Bulgarian.
"Prediction of Zhirynovsky"
A whole layer of Russian media culture can be called the "clairvoyance folklore," and it continues to broadcast "predictions" and "forecasts" from the former leader of the LDPR political party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, even after his death. Propagandists are attempting to create a cult of personality around him, and his chauvinistic and racist views are being masked as the "voice of the people," aligning with the Kremlin's position. Propaganda media annually refreshes the list of the politician's predictions, trying to present him and others with anti-Ukrainian views as "visionaries" and "luminaries" of society, as "creators" of Russia's national idea, notably after Putin.
For example, Zhirinovsky "predicted" the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, against Israel, claiming that it would overshadow Ukraine. He described the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory as an opportunity for "Russia to become a great state" and called for the occupation of Ukraine's eastern and southern regions. Additionally, he supposedly spoke about "instability" in Kazakhstan and Armenia, the friendship between Georgia and Russia, and "predicted" the "collapse of the USA" within ten years and the "unification of the Russian world." However, even considering only those "predictions" that coincided with reality, they can be classified as assumptions based on Zhirinovsky's personal ideological views and geopolitical trends.
How Ukrainians (un)consciously play along with such propaganda
The propaganda machine manipulates the public's desire for quick, straightforward answers to complex questions, especially in uncertain times. In the context of total censorship in Russia, rumors and conspiracy theories, amplified by "predictions," serve as a means of reassurance. Ultimately, there will be fewer questions for the regime if the population believes that economic decline and military actions are temporary difficulties that must be endured for a better future.
Propagandists also manipulate the historical significance of "seers" in the mass culture of the USSR, using the popularity of figures like Vanga and Wolf Messing. For example, if a "prediction" is made by a "new psychic," to enhance their credibility, they emphasize the alignments of his or her "conclusions" with the words of "recognized masters" like Vanga and Messing. However, when it comes to foreigner "seers", Russian channels often impose their own synchronized translation on their materials, which do not match the original texts in the native language.
However, the number of prophecies is also increasing in the Ukrainian media space. By giving psychics the same platform as experts in political and social sciences, media help propagandists continue to use this method to spread their narratives. It does not mean a need for a total ban on this "industry," but as long as Ukrainian media continue to blur the line between analytics and extrasensory perception, the Russian propaganda machine will continue to have a powerful tool for promoting its theses, which can unconsciously lodge in the minds of such content’s consumers.
Main page illustration credits: Natalia Lobach
