The Rossoshansky District Court of the Voronezh Region arrested former serviceman Alexander Lunin on charges of displaying extremist or Nazi symbols (Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code), the outlet Viorstka reported, citing a case file on the court's website. The court ruling has not been published, and the length of the arrest was not specified.
On June 25, Lunin posted a video address to Vladimir Putin on Instagram. In it, he demanded a personal meeting on live broadcast and threatened that if refused, 'the army will turn its weapons against the Kremlin.' According to Lunin, representatives of the Defense Ministry and security forces allegedly contacted him and asked him to convey this message to the president. The video garnered 18 million views in several days.
In the video, Lunin also claimed that Russian servicemen are allegedly held in makeshift 'zindans' and tortured for refusing to follow orders or hand over money, after which they are listed as missing.
Lunin is a 39-year-old former serviceman from the village of Lizinovka in the Voronezh Region. According to leaks cited by the outlet Agentstvo, he bore the surname Pustovalov until 2023. As Meduza reports, he fought on Russia's side in Ukraine from late 2022 as part of the volunteer battalion named after Sudoplatov (formed by the authorities of occupied Melitopol), and later served in the 150th Motorized Rifle Division, where he was wounded.
Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on June 26 that the presidential administration had heard about the video but had not reviewed it in detail: 'Judging by your words, there are some rather strange formulations; we need to familiarize ourselves first.'
Later that evening, according to Lunin, he was contacted by Vitaly Borodin, head of the 'Federal Project for Security and the Fight against Corruption' (known for filing complaints against cultural figures), who offered to come to Moscow to 'voice the problems.' Lunin left Lizinovka and stopped responding to messages.
On the night of June 27, police arrived at Lunin's home with a search warrant. His wife Tatyana said on TikTok (later deleting the video) that law enforcement seized computer equipment, flash drives, laptops, and nunchucks, The Insider reports. She later wrote that her husband was 'alive and well' and asked that no information about him be published. Soon, a message appeared on Lunin's Telegram channel from a family acquaintance stating that he had been detained for 11 days.
The case against Lunin was submitted to the court on June 27 at 10:00 a.m., and the hearing took place at 11:30 a.m. Data appeared on the court's website only on June 29, Novaya Gazeta Europe noted. What specific punishment was imposed and what prompted the protocol has not been disclosed.
Earlier, information appeared on the serviceman's Telegram channel that Borodin was 'ready to help Alexander get out of prison.'