Russian propagandists make up 'predictions' as they go along
The propagandists regularly "feed" the audience with new "predictions" / collage by Ulad Rubanau, Euroradio
Putin's love of shamans and other esoteric shenanigans has long been well known to experts. Russian propaganda also makes extensive use of occult themes: people are inundated with all kinds of secret signs, the mystical significance of dumplings (yes, they exist), and of course, the predictions of Vanga. Only, to all appearances, the propagandists make most of them up.
She "predicted" everything
"Vanga predicted Russia's domination of the world," the NTV television channel cheers its audience, followed by hundreds of Russian and pro-Russian sources.
Yes, that is exactly what Russian "journalists" do -- they tell the audience about various predictions almost daily. In this case, they specifically cite the "words" of Vanga: "China, India and Russia will meet at one point. China is in for for a bright rise". It was first mentioned online in early June 2022. Before that, the "prophecy" of the woman who died in 1996, for some reason did not appear anywhere.
Kostornoy "finds" or "recalls" the words of the seer on any topic under discussion just in time. For example, in December 2020, he said, with reference to Vanga, that the coronavirus pandemic would end on March 20. The prophetess also "communicated" through Kostornoy about a "large-scale outbreak" of monkeypox. This "prophecy" also appeared for the first time only after new cases of the long-known disease began to be recorded, which was at the end of March 2022.
Kostornoy actively talks about a variety of "prophecies". For example, in 2021, he "predicted" wars in South America and the invention of a cure for cancer. How accurate these "predictions" were and whether he was in fact in contact with the Bulgarian seer is up to you to decide.
"People eat it up"
Channel One, for once, produces a program about Vanga at least once a week or devotes considerable attention to it. Just like NTV does. Tsargrad, StarHit, Moskovsky Komsomolets and other propaganda media outlets such as Sputnik Belarus also make use of this topic.
By making numerous "forecasts of Vanga," these outlets successfully satisfy the interests of their audience. According to the Wordstat service, the number of search queries for the word "Vanga" increased many times after the start of the war. For example, in March alone, it was searched for almost 2.2 million times. The attention to it is no longer the same, but in May, people searched for different predictions of Vanga more than 700 thousand times.
The Google Trends service confirms the surge of interest in Vanga. Among the most frequent queries are "Vanga's predictions for Russia in 2022" and "Vanga war 2022" and similar.
For many, "predictions" are a serious argument in political disputes. For example, here is a quote from one of the characters in Meduza's text about the perception of war in Russian society:
"Why do you think Ukraine would attack us?"
"Vanga predicted that by 2026 Russia would become a world empire. Well, there is no other way to become a great power. In history, it was done by annexing territories".
Of course, an earlier version of such "prophecy" is also impossible to find.
