Kirill Tereshin, the man who once went viral, for turning his arms into cartoon-sized biceps is now reportedly at risk of losing both of them.
Kirill Tereshin, the man who once went viral for turning his arms into swollen, cartoon-ish biceps is now reportedly on the brink of losing both limbs. The 29-year-old Russian influencer, infamously branded the “Russian Popeye”, spent years pumping his arms with oil, petroleum jelly and synthetic fillers in a desperate bid for towering bulk.
Tereshin first shot into the digital spotlight in 2017, when images of his ballooned, unnaturally inflated biceps began flooding the internet. Barely in his twenties, he quickly earned monikers like “Russian Popeye” and “Bazooka Hands”, as his arms resembled inflated balloons more than human muscle.
Openly admitting the extreme transformation stemmed from deep insecurities, he said he believed larger-than-life arms would help him attract the kind of women he thought were “out of his league”. In interviews, he confessed to wanting “beautiful” women, claiming it was “impossible for an ordinary guy to date such girls”, prompting him to alter his physique.
In a 2018 interview with Stavropol Komsomolskaya Pravda, he detailed his routine boiling vegetable oil on a stove and injecting five millilitres into his arms daily before switching to Vaseline oil for what he called “huge gains”.
“First of all I began to inject vegetable oil, I boiled it in a saucepan and then injected five millilitres every day… As a result in half a year I made huge gains for myself.”
Those “gains”, however, were nothing but trapped oil — not muscle. Over years, an estimated three litres of petroleum jelly and oil-based concoctions accumulated inside his arms, forming hardened lumps that starved his limbs of blood and oxygen.
His fixation later escalated to his face. Spending roughly $15,000 on fillers, he reshaped his lips, cheekbones, jawline and forehead. At different points, he claimed he “looks like the Joker” and aspired to resemble an “alien” despite repeated medical warnings.
Surgeries, Dead Tissue, Regret
The viscous petroleum jelly began blocking blood vessels, killing tissue and forming dense masses doctors struggled to remove. Medical professionals warned the substances could trigger kidney failure, sepsis and eventual amputation.
Over the last few years, surgeons have repeatedly cut away necrotic muscle and extracted solidified jelly. Tereshin shared graphic updates from hospital beds, his arms heavily bandaged as he confessed he was “getting rid of this nightmare”.
“I did not think about the consequences. I want to get rid of [these] arms, but unfortunately, there’s no fixing it anymore.”
Even after multiple operations, his biceps remained misshapen and grotesquely swollen. Earlier this year, he posted footage showing distorted bulges under fragile skin, captioned, “Surgery to remove the biceps.”
Arms amputation
According to new reports in Russian media, Tereshin’s condition has reached a critical stage. Doctors now warn that both arms may need to be amputated due to severe infection, collapsed tissue structure and compromised blood flow.
Experts reportedly believe that saving his limbs would require extensive skin grafts and a multi-specialist surgical team including vascular, plastic and reconstructive surgeons to restore circulation and rebuild the destroyed areas.
But for now, they consider him too unwell to survive such a major operation. If his condition does not stabilise, amputation becomes the only option to save his life.
In his recent social media posts, Tereshin revealed he has begun removing fillers from his jaw, saying he wants to “be all natural, a 29-year-old again”.