Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Oh, they may not have anything quite as surreal as QAnon, but some enterprising individuals have come up with some pretty huge theroies explain why, despite massive resource wealth, Russia still has staggering inequality and an economy that ranks behind Italy. One says that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was secretly "occupied" by the United States.

Related: 8 Hilariously Insane Examples Of Vladimir Putin Propaganda

This might come as a shock to many people, especially U.S. military personnel who never knew they could be deployed to occupation duty in Russia, but it is the pet theory of a Russian State Duma deputy named Evgeny Fedorov. He claims that the American occupation of Russia is something more subtle. For example, one insidious thing those evil Yanks got the Russians to do was amend their constitution to ban censorship (because the Kremlin observes the shit out of that rule!) and any state-mandated ideology.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

But according to Fedorov, the tide is turning, because in 2014, Vladimir Putin heroically rose up against the invisible American occupiers. Fedorov is doing everything he can to help by founding what he calls the "National Liberation Movement." It mostly consists of people getting paid to wave flags at rallies and rail about "fifth columnist" traitors.