On June 25, Russian serviceman Aleksandr Lunin posted an Instagram address to Vladimir Putin, demanding a personal live broadcast meeting with the Russian president. Lunin said he wanted to tell him “the whole truth” about what is happening in the country.
The serviceman claimed that “representatives of high-ranking officials from the Defense Ministry and security agencies” had contacted him and allegedly decided to relay a message to the president through him. According to Lunin, this happened because Putin had supposedly seen another appeal he recorded earlier in June.
In the new video, Lunin said that thousands of servicemen are being kept in pits and tortured for refusing to carry out “stupid suicidal orders” and hand over money to commanders. He also warned that if the meeting in the Kremlin does not happen, the consequences will be “very serious” and “the army will turn its weapons against the Kremlin.”
In less than a day, the video received nearly 11 million views. After that, Meduza compiled what is known about Lunin himself. According to leaked data reviewed by Meduza and Mediazona, he is a junior sergeant in the Russian Armed Forces from the Voronezh region who fought as part of the 150th Motor Rifle Division, a formation within the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army, and was wounded.
Those records indicate that Lunin is 39 years old and was born on May 25, 1987. The outlet Agentstvo reported that he previously had the surname Pustovalov and changed it to Lunin in 2023. Lunin himself says he has been involved in military conflicts since age 19, has gone through several “hot spots,” suffered wounds and concussions, and has serious health problems, including psychological ones.
Lunin also said he served in the Sudoplatov volunteer battalion from December 2022, when the unit was formed by the Russian-installed authorities in occupied Melitopol. He first served as a rifleman, then as commander of a reconnaissance squad, and later headed a reconnaissance platoon. According to him, he trained as a mortar operator and artilleryman, served in the Kursk sector throughout his contract, and suffered a concussion.
Lunin says that in 2025 he was “kicked out” of the BARS unit after posting a video about two fighters being sent on a mission without assault rifles. It is also known that he worked for the unitary enterprise called the Sudoplatov Center for Technical Development and Services in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region. According to Lunin, his veteran’s pension amounts to 4,500 rubles. In early 2026, he began actively running his own channels on different platforms, and since March his Instagram has featured more than 700 videos. He says that acquaintances still fighting send him footage from the front that he wants to show to Putin.