The Strange Case of Alexander Lunin

This story was related by journalist Dmitry Kolezev, in his YouTube video from this week. An edited transcript follows...

On June 3, a previously unknown military man, Alexander Lunin, addressed President Vladimir Putin on Instagram, demanded a meeting with him, and threatened a military mutiny if refused. The reason: the rampant extortion of soldiers and their unlawful arrests.

As Lunin said in his video (since taken down from Instagram):

“Right now, dozens, hundreds, thousands of our soldiers are sitting in dungeons, punished by their own commanders — sitting there, rotting, subjected to torture and violence by so-called Gestapo agents, all because they refused to carry out stupid, suicidal orders, because they refused to hand over their money, and in the end they get zeroed out, turned into the missing.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich, pay attention to this, invite me to see you. The consequences will be very serious. If I don't get to the Kremlin soon and speak live, on air, right next to you, the army will turn its weapons against the Kremlin.”

The problems Lunin describes are real and painful, and they are widely discussed within the pro-war "Z" community. As a result, his appeal collected millions of views and an enormous number of likes and comments. Then they came knocking for Lunin. His home was searched, and he was detained for 11 days, ostensibly for displaying extremist symbols.

While Lunin was under arrest, a strange video appeared on Instagram — not on his own account, but on Instagram as a while — and it looked a lot like an AI-generated deepfake. In it, Lunin supposedly retracts his statements and urges everyone to obey the chain of command.

“Hello, I'm Alexander Lunin. I'm recording this video to officially and entirely voluntarily withdraw my previous appeal to the president. I've come to realize that my demands were entirely destructive, and that calls to abandon one's position are a serious crime against the state. I want to assure everyone that law enforcement officers and representatives of the security services treated me strictly within the bounds of the law. I had an extremely persuasive preventive conversation with them. My physical condition is excellent. The authorities are acting entirely correctly and consistently. I ask all servicemen not to repeat my mistakes, not to ask unnecessary questions, to carry out any order from command, and to remember that each of us is under close observation.”

The video spread across Instagram and Telegram channels, but, judging by the comments, the audience didn't buy it. Many rightly suspected it was AI-generated.

Now a more convincing video of Lunin has appeared on his own Instagram. He appears to be free, lying on white sheets, looking fine — but offering no apology and no call for anyone to obey the chain of command.

“I’ve lost a bit of weight. Grew some scruff. Anyway, it's all good, I'm in Moscow. All will be well. Don't worry about me.”

A pro-government activist and informer named Vitaly Borodin also posted on his Telegram channel a photo with Lunin. He wrote that Lunin is doing fine and added that "we" — whoever that refers to — "were with him the whole time."

It's not entirely clear what actually happened, but here's my guess [said Kolezev]: after his arrest, or detention, Lunin was interrogated and there was an attempt to talk him into recording some kind of repentant video, but it didn't work. So they used footage from his interrogation to generate a fake instead, and spread it through various social media. Lunin himself, it seems, has no intention of continuing to rebel — he's already deleted his original video threatening mutiny — but he also hasn't come out with any full retraction or repudiation of what he said.

It's a murky, strange story, but it matters for the resonance that first appeal set off. It shows there's a great deal of tension in society, including within pro-war circles, among the so-called "Z" crowd — and that even a rather clumsy, inarticulate appeal from a little-known soldier can stir people up and provoke a real response. Imagine what would happen if a more prominent soldier came forward. And since Lunin made his appeal right around the anniversary of the Prigozhin mutiny, that only adds to the obvious associations.

Overall, the Kremlin and the security services seem to be trying to contain expressions of anxiety and discontent, and to tamp down protest activity, on a case-by-case basis — while trying not to come down too hard. It's telling that Lunin himself wasn't given a long sentence and, from what we can see, wasn't treated all that harshly. The mood in the country is roiling, combustible — no matter how much Putin denies it. Situations like this call for caution. But caution is exactly what Russian authorities are not known for. The system is trained for repression, for fairly blunt suppression. If pockets of protest multiply, handling them one at a time won't be sustainable. You can't just send the authorities after every single person venting on Instagram, whether it's this Borodin character or some other public figure. And if enough such cases pile up at once, the system could run into serious trouble.

Watch the full video