(Adnkronos) – Retired Russian soldier Aleksandr Lunin, known for his social media videos, has requested a public meeting at the Kremlin, broadcast live on television, with Vladimir Putin, in two Instagram posts that immediately went viral with 11 million views in less than 24 hours, in which he threatens “very serious consequences,” such as mutiny, with “military forces using their weapons against the presidency,” if such a meeting is not granted.
Lunin proposes to explain to the President “the whole truth about what is happening in our country right now,” starting with “tens, hundreds, thousands” of soldiers who “are rotting in underground cells, tortured and forced to endure abuse” “for refusing to follow stupid and suicidal orders” or to hand over their money to commanders. “They are eventually eliminated, listed as missing.”
He also states that he decided to record the video after being approached by three men, from the Ministry of Defense and Internal Affairs, in a black car, who asked him to convey the message to the President, after seeing a previous message of his earlier this month.
Alexander Lunin is originally from Voronezh. According to Meduza and Mediazona’s reconstruction, he is 39 years old, took part in the war against Ukraine, in the 150th Motorized Rifle Division of the 8th Combined Arms Army of the Guards, and was wounded, suffering several traumas and psychological problems. According to the information site Agentsvo, in 2023 he changed his surname to Lunin, from Pustovalov. Since 2019, he has been involved in various combat operations in different conflict zones, adds the Telegram channel Ne zhi Khoroshie. He held the rank of ‘mladshiy serzhant’, junior sergeant.
In December 2022, he joined the ‘Sudaplatov’ volunteer battalion which had just been created by pro-Russian authorities in Melitopol, southeastern Ukraine. He rose to command a reconnaissance platoon. He received training as a mortar and artillery operator. And he spent a lot of time on the Kursk front, where he was wounded.
He was forced to leave the Bars detachment in 2025, after publishing a video describing how two soldiers had been sent on a mission without rifles. And he receives a pension. Since March, he has published more than 700 videos, which soldiers at the front send him, on his Instagram channel. Videos he now wants to show to President Putin.
Lunin assures in a second video that he is not bluffing. That if something happens to him or his family, “it will be the signal for action to begin,” it will be the green light for “a meat grinder” in Russia. “I am conveying a message, nothing more. I am not the leader of a rebellion. They turned to me for a simple reason: because I cannot be taken,” he wrote, perhaps referring to the previous attempt to report problems of the armed forces to Putin made by Evgeny Prigozhin, who died in a plane crash a few months after his attempted mutiny. Lunin later backed down, with a third video explaining that he has no quarrel with the Kremlin but with pro-war bloggers.
