Some QAnon followers believe that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a false flag operation, or that it’s all just a movie. Other followers believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin is conducting a secret war to root out the “deep state.” Still others believe it’s somehow linked to President Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s infamous laptop. Some even believe it’s a covert operation to attack U.S. biolabs located in Ukraine.
But whatever else QAnon followers believe, they share a common admiration for the authoritarian Russian leader, thanks to messages from their anonymous leader Q, the friendship between Putin and their hero former President Donald Trump, and most recently, messages from Russian-state-backed media that the mainstream media is not to be trusted and its criticism of Putin isn’t justified.
But when QAnon first began, the person behind the conspiracy had a very different opinion of Russia’s authoritarian leader.
On Nov 1, 2017, four days after the very first “Q drop” was posted on 4chan, the anonymous creator of the conspiracy movement made his first reference to Putin.
In drop number 15, Q claimed that Putin is part of the global cabal that then-President Trump was fighting, lumping Putin in with sworn enemies of the movement like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Hungarian billionaire philanthropist George Soros.
But a day later, when Q posed the question “Russia is what?” one of the first responses shows how QAnon’s view of Putin would evolve, directly...
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