A Russian actor got up at 4:30 a.m. to tell Putin on Instagram: ‘You are not my president.’ Hours later, after his mother read him the comments, he said, actually, he loves the government.
Alexei Yarmushchik, a 26-year-old actor who worked at the theater run by Sergei Bezrukov, posted a video on Instagram on the morning of July 28 in which he addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said Putin was not “his president” and that Crimea was “not ours.” As of this article’s publication, the video had drawn more than a million views and over 30,000 likes. Here’s what we know.
What he said
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, hello. My name is Lyosha, and I’m a theater and film actor. I worked at Bezrukov’s theater for a year and a half. I’ve played the lead in a TV series. Basically, I’m a very talented actor, and a lot of people in the industry know it. I couldn’t get to sleep just now, and I want to tell you: every day, every night, I talk to you in my head — when I record videos, when I address people, when I do anything at all. I was lying there, and now I’ve gotten up, it’s 4:30 in the morning — I don’t know what to do, help me, save me, I can’t fall asleep. What do I do? Everyone watching this video right now knows what I mean. If I really am some kind of creative individual who has kept quiet all this time, well, here I am, speaking up.
I don’t want you to be my president. Never in my life. I’m 25 years old. I don’t know a single person my age who isn’t afraid of you or who would want you to be my president. Right now I’m running through all the creative people I know, everyone I’ve seen online. Only [pro-Kremlin pop singer] Shaman! Shaman alone against all the “foreign agents”!
Phew — that’s probably the best thing I can say right now. My heart is pounding, I can hardly catch my breath. I’m the most honest and sincere person on earth. I know that everyone who has followed me all year — all 27,000 of them — and everyone you’ve forwarded my videos to knows who I am, knows that I never lie, that I’m always kind, and so on.
I don’t want you to be my president! Dissolve the entire government! I don’t want to watch your television. I want to listen to my own songs. I don’t want to use VKontakte, I want to use Instagram, because it’s better. Yes, I’m a zoomer, I hardly ever voted, I paid no attention to politics at all. But when I turned 14, I showed up for English class and my teacher said he’d fallen out with his best friend over Crimea… I don’t think Crimea is ours. And that’s not some grand pronouncement. Not one person my age thinks it is. Maybe people did think that once, but now… I don’t even know what to talk about anymore. My whole Instagram feed, everyone I know — they’re either leaving, in shock, or just not talking about it. I don’t know where these people are who love and respect you as president.
You are not my president. That’s all I wanted to say. Good night.
Hours after posting, the actor said he “loves the government and respects Putin”
A few hours after the first video, Yarmushchik released a second one, saying in an elated tone that he was “in shock” at the number of views. He said he had talked with his mother, who told him that he doesn’t understand anything and that Putin has “done a lot” for the country. She also read him “comments from people that she liked.”
“I was amazed at how kindly people write. I finally saw people on the opposite side from me. But they’re kind. I’m feeling kind of elated, guys. I think I did something right. […] I just adore our people; now I even love the government, and now I even… you know… respect Vladimir Vladimirovich, because there really are people out there who support him somehow. The whole point is just to talk. Just talk. […] I’m proud I was born in this country,” Yarmushchik said.
On the evening of July 28, the actor posted a short video from the Moscow metro. “People are writing things in the comments like, ‘It’s dumb and stupid.’ And so on. Of course it’s dumb and stupid — I did it half-asleep, with a rumpled face, without preparing anything to say. What did you expect? Dumb and stupid — that’s exactly what life is,” he said.
Yarmushchik told Ostorozhno Novosti, a Russian news channel on Telegram, that the first video was “an attempt to break out of my information bubble, a generational bubble.” Asked whether he feared repercussions, he said he was “of course” worried. He added that he still does not know what will happen next, but that “everything in the world came together in such a way” that he decided to record the message.
Yarmushchik said he recorded the video partly because of rumors of a new mobilization in Russia and that “the borders will be closed like in Ukraine,” leaving him unable to get out. “For me, as a young man, this is one of my biggest anxiety triggers,” he said.
Yarmushchik graduated from the Konstantin Raikin Higher School of Performing Arts in 2023 and went to work at the Moscow Gubernsky Drama Theater, run by Sergei Bezrukov — an actor who twice signed on as a campaign proxy for Putin in presidential elections. He walked away in June 2026, the Telegram outlet Ostorozhno Novosti reported, citing low salaries and a workplace where actors are “treated like property, their psychological boundaries are frequently violated, and their dignity is degraded.”
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Well…
Yarmushchik is actually 26 years old.