The coronavirus pandemic has boosted the popularity of the pro-Trump viral conspiracy theory.

QAnon’s baseless assertions of a worldwide anti-Trump conspiracy have infiltrated the American mainstream. Matt Rourke / AP / TASS

Ever since the U.S. presidential election was called for Joe Biden, Tatiana Abdullina has been watching the twists and turns of outgoing President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results from her home in Volchansk, a town of 10,000 in Russia’s Ural Mountains. The mother of four is convinced the legal manoeuvres will be successful, and that Trump will remain president after Jan. 20.

“I hope that Trump’s victory will help the whole world,” she told The Moscow Times in an interview conducted over the social network VKontakte. “Not just with this so-called pandemic, but with other issues too.”

Abdullina is one of a growing number of Russians who believe in QAnon - a sprawling patchwork of conspiracy theories based around the unfounded belief that Trump is battling a shadowy group of child-trafficking pedophiles in the highest ranks of the global elite.