When video blogger Natalia Chernikhovskaya looked out the window of her Moscow apartment building she saw an antenna tower with white panels and a circular dish in the center. At first, she never suspected it could be the source of unexplained headaches and pains that she began experiencing this spring. Then she shared the symptoms with her 73,000 YouTube subscribers.

“Many of them responded that they were also experiencing headaches and that the pain would come in these waves,” she said.

Some of 42-year-old Chernikhovskaya’s followers then urged her to read about the side effects of radiation from cell phone masts. This was her introduction to the global anti-5G conspiracy movement. Reading hundreds of blog and social media posts from the U.S., U.K. and Europe, she quickly became convinced that there was a connection between the way she felt and what many identified as the catastrophic threat posed by developments in cellular technology.

While often cited as a leading source of global disinformation, Russia has proven fertile ground for this Western-born conspiracy theory. Against a backdrop of uncertainty and fear over the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, the nation’s social media has over the past 12 months experienced a boom in anti-5G content.