He Burned Himself Alive to Protest Russia's War in Ukraine. The State Tried to Erase Him

Information about the self-immolation of a resident of Kaliningrad born in 1988 in protest against the war was first published in an open report of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service. The authors of the report did not disclose the name of the deceased. We managed to find out the details of the incident together with Delfi Estonia and Lithuanian broadcaster LRT. We reconstructed what happened based on Russian Investigative Committee documents, conversations with Okunev's relatives and colleagues, and European security sources.

Five CCTV cameras are installed in front of the 1200 Guardsmen Memorial in Kaliningrad, the USSR's first monument to soldiers killed in the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945. In the center of the memorial is the Eternal Flame. From time to time, various incidents occur near the memorial, which are then widely reported in the local news, and their perpetrators become the subjects of criminal cases. Since last year, for the "desecration of war memorials," a sentence of up to five years in prison has been provided.

Thus, in February this year, a drunken Kaliningrad resident wanted to light a cigarette from the fire and warmed his feet over the flames. In January 2026, a couple of residents stole a basket of flowers from the monument. In September 2025, another couple had sex at the memorial.

Six months before that, around 5 am on February 24, 2025, 37-year-old Kaliningrad resident Alexander Okunev burned himself alive at the memorial to 1200 Guardsmen in protest against the war — and no one found out about it.

"He was sitting in a corner, not where all the people were"

In the 2010s, Kaliningrad earned the title of the protest capital of Russia, and a series of large-scale rallies even led to the replacement of Governor Georgy Boos.

However, since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, the city has not exhibited any notable protest activity. In the first days of the invasion, a wave of anti-war actions swept through Kaliningrad. At one point, the city became a leader in the number of protocols issued for "discrediting" the army. But almost immediately, protests died down as they did throughout the country. Igor Luzin, a Kaliningrad activist and former employee of Navalny's local headquarters, explains that the "political field" in Kaliningrad has been cleaned up just like the rest of Russia.

Alexander Okunev was not an activist. He avoided talking politics at work (he was a sysadmin at a firm selling retail equipment), did not argue about the full-scale war with his family, and apparently was not active on social media. Okunev had almost no friends, had no girlfriend, and lived alone.

He practically did not talk to his colleagues, could ignore even his superiors: he could keep silent in response to a greeting or not answer the questions. At corporate parties, New Year's Eve, for example, he tried not to leave his office.

"Was sitting there in a corner, not where all the people ... Somehow always in himself, lived his own life," recalls his former colleague. "Closed. Strange." However, there were no complaints about his work: "His programmer's brains were cool". His colleague believes that Alexander could have made a good career, "but it feels like he didn't care much about money". When Okunev decided to quit (about six months before the incident), everyone was upset.

"We asked him, have you found another job? No. Are you going somewhere? Maybe. No one had any idea what or why he left," says his former colleague. Acquaintances call Okunev "kind, responsive, fair": "He always helped everyone". He was fond of origami, and when one of his colleagues had a birthday, he could secretly put "some flowers" on their table. Regarding his hobbies, people close to him say that he liked to watch movies and ride a bicycle.

After the dismissal, Okunev really did not find another job. "Sat at home, practically did not communicate with anyone," heard his ex-colleague.

Cleanup

Having decided on such a desperate protest act as self-immolation, Alexander Okunev did not seem to be trying to attract attention. Maybe he was afraid that someone could stop him. But he obviously chose the date (the anniversary of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine) and the place (the main war memorial in the city) for a reason. Perhaps the time too: the Russian missile struck Kyiv on February 24, 2022, began just about five in the morning.

Okunev's charred corpse, despite the numerous cameras at the memorial, was discovered by a random passerby only at around 6:40 am. The snow appears to have been spray-painted with the words "No to War". Employees of the investigative department for the Leninsky district of Kaliningrad went to the scene. In the report of the events of the night, Okunev's self-immolation is mentioned along with reports of two other corpses and a ninth-grade girl who had left home.

The incident was reported to the head of the city administration, Elena Dyatlova. She immediately took everything under her control, the European intelligence officer knows. She was assisted by Evgeny Maslov, head of the local service for the protection of cultural heritage. The main thing for them was to quickly get rid of the body and the words on the snow — the officials were worried mostly that journalists would know what happened. The Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Kaliningrad Oblast, Andrey Yermak, was especially worried that the self-immolation took place near the monument of the Great Patriotic War — too symbolic.

Everything was settled by 9:15 am. Traces of the incident were removed, and authorities were relieved to report to the local governor and other local officials that no one had seen anything, the source of IStories Media said.

Information about the self-immolation of an unnamed Kaliningrad resident first went public only along with a report by Estonian intelligence in the winter of 2026: "On the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale war, at five o'clock in the morning on February 24, 2025, a man born in 1988 wrote 'No to War' in the snow near the monument to a Russian soldier in Kaliningrad and set himself on fire in protest."

None of the Kaliningrad media ever reported the news. There were no local or propaganda Telegram channels or other social media posts about Okunev. The Alexanders' family did not spread the word about the incident either. "What's the point of somehow publicizing and telling all this? What for?" one of them told reporters.

"There is another way"

An acquaintance of Okunev says that on the eve of his suicide, he behaved "absolutely normally." There was no hint of what he was going to do, and "what happened came as a shock to everyone." Okunev's relatives speak of some "expert examinations" conducted as part of the investigation, which found that "there was no outside influence" on Aexander. The family was questioned by the local Investigative Committee; the police came to Okunev's former colleagues for a "characterization," but came away with "Worked well, did not communicate with anyone."

A close friend of Okunev recounted to IStories Media the content of his suicide note: "He wrote that there is another way. Apparently, he meant a world with peace. And he didn't want to live in the world we have, so he made this decision... But we are all aware that world peace is a utopia."

The note also shows that Okunev understood that "most likely, it will not be in the news anywhere, it will not be widely covered anywhere," the source tells IStories Media.

Elena Maslova, head of the Kaliningrad administration, and Evgeny Maslov, head of the cultural heritage protection service, have not responded to journalists' requests.

Culture Minister Andrei Yermak replied that he was not familiar with the results of the investigation of this "accident", so he would not comment on anything. He expressed confidence that law enforcement agencies "will comment on the situation as soon as the investigation is finalized."

"These people are afraid not of the people, but of their superiors"

In January 1969, the self-immolation of Jan Palach, a philosophy student at Charles University, brought tens of thousands of people onto the streets and became a symbol of resistance to the Soviet occupation in Czechoslovakia. The self-immolation of street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi provoked mass protests in Tunisia, which eventually led to the resignation of the country's president.

In Russia, the self-immolations of journalist Irina Slavina and Udmurt scientist Albert Razin did not lead to any notable collective action. Could Okunev's suicide have provoked some protest if people had learned about it?

Sociologist Margarita Zavadskaya thinks not. "Self-immolation is a powerful symbolic act," she says, "but public outrage alone is not enough to trigger large-scale collective action under conditions of severe repression and limited access to information."

So why did the Russian authorities try so hard to conceal information about what happened? To prevent "protest contagion" and imitation, she explains. Moreover, such an anti-war suicide contradicts the government's theory of a universal public consensus on war. And local officials would look incapable of maintaining control in the eyes of their superiors.

Political scientist Ekaterina Shulman also does not believe that fear of further protests was behind the Kaliningrad authorities' actions. "Local authorities are not afraid of the people, not of protests. They are afraid of their superiors," she says, "they were afraid to hear: 'You oversaw, allowed a scandal, there are media publications, what do you eat your bread for?'"

"Authoritarian regimes are afraid of symbolic sparks. They understand that a single act of protest may not cause an immediate mass movement, but can become a moral symbol around which scattered anxiety and discontent begin to crystallize," says Lithuanian political scientist Nerijus Malukiavicius. "That is why such regimes seek to 'clean up' the scene, silence history, and discredit the victim."