Warsaw, Poland – The details are not yet clear, but it appears that the long-awaited internal revolt against Russian President Vladimir Putin could finally be taking shape. In the years since the Ukraine war began, that was the fervent hope of those both inside and outside of Russia who despise his barbaric rule. They deplore how he has destroyed not only huge tracts of territory in Ukraine but also the overall stability and security environment in all of Europe.
The big problem, however, many would have said for years now, is that this is also a vain hope. Putin’s regime takes paranoia and protective security measures to a new level. When a participant at a forum featuring Russian historian Stephen Kotkin of the Hoover Institution told the scholar that he believed that Putin’s people could turn on him someday. Kotkin’s skeptical response was “I admire your optimism.”
Putin in Red Square in 2017 Creative Commons Image.
But this one-time hopeless wish may be slowly migrating into the realm of the possible. For the first time, there are noises that something is afoot behind the scenes, but no one can say exactly what that might be.
In the past 24 hours, a series of short videos – usually referred to as “reels”- have been appearing on the Instagram platform from a 39-year-old former Russian serviceman named Aleksandr Lunin.
Lunin’s Message
In his video address, he threatens a military revolt against Putin if he is not allowed to meet with the Russian president and speak live on Moscow’s main television network. His message, he says, is “the whole truth about what is happening in our country right now.”
Lunin said he recorded the video because “representatives of high-ranking officials from the Defense Ministry (MoD) and security services” had met with him and had decided to use him to send a message to Putin. They approached him because Putin was said to have seen a previous video Lunin had posted earlier in June.
In the 25 June video, he described thousands of soldiers being held in pits and tortured by their superiors “for refusing to carry out stupid…orders” and for refusing to hand over some portion of their military pay to their commanders.
These details were originally reported by the independent Russian media outlet Meduza.
The claims of Russian servicemen being brutally mistreated ring true, as there have been numerous reports to this effect since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022.
Putin Meeting With Russian Government in 2024. Russian Federation Photo.
As testimony to how deeply his message resonates with the Russian public, this first video has garnered more than 11 million views in less than a day.
Meeting With Putin
His video warns that if he is not granted a meeting with Putin on live television, “the consequences will be very serious” and “the army will turn its weapons against the Kremlin.”
Lunin himself is a junior sergeant in the Russian Armed Forces who is originally from the Voronezh region and took part in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The news sites Meduza and Mediazona have reported, based on Russian military data leaks, that Lunin served in the 150th Motorized Rifle Division, part of the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army, and had been wounded in action.
The Russian serviceman said he had been involved in combat operations since the age of 19 and had served in several conflict zones, the Telegram channel “Ne zhdi khoroshiye Novosti” (Don’t Wait for Good News to Arrive) reported in January. He has sustained wounds and admits suffering from a concussion and has serious health problems, including psychological problems.
But rather than being the leader of a revolutionary movement or another Wagner-type revolt, Lunin says he is merely carrying a message from the security officials who met with him and want their concerns relayed to Putin himself. Lunin says these military officials are fed up with the war and the “meat grinder” tactics on the front lines.
“I’m sending a message, nothing more. I’m not the leader of the uprising. They came to me for one simple reason: because I can’t be bought, because the president [has] heard me,” he said.
Change in the Autumn
“No one wants bloodshed. [They just want to] make clear to the president that there will be total chaos here if this continues,” he said the officials had told him when demanding his public appeal be brought to Putin.
Speaking with a long-time Russian colleague, he explained that “Lunin could not launch this media-based initiative on his own. There are some credible rumors that he is what you would call in the US a ‘front man.’ And the people he is fronting for are the FSB, whose senior ranks now believe the many crises Putin has created for Russia are simply going too far.”
Those who believe this theory point to the recent arrest by the FSB of Ilya Traber, a St. Petersburg organized crime kingpin. He is also one of Putin’s oldest allies and associates, having been so for more than 30 years.
This arrest now appears to have been the beginning of an effort to undermine Putin one step at a time. Relations between the Russian President and former KGB Lt. Col. and the security organs have also been strained since a “blame game” kicked off following the failures of Russia’s initial invasion, many of which were laid at the feet of the FSB. This has put the President and the security agency he used to head at odds from time to time.
“If there is a real effort to remove Putin and how it might happen, but there is a real sense that something big is coming by the autumn,” said the Russian colleague. “It could be that by this time, Putin being removed, it could mean the war being finally stopped – or it could mean both. What is for certain is that the current dynamic cannot be maintained as it is today.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, with a specialization in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
