An American who moved to a farm in the Russian countryside and has long extolled the government and its agricultural policies now reportedly faces deportation after speaking out against officials.
“This is just a shock for us,” farmer Justus Walker said in a video he labeled “Family Tragedy” and posted on YouTube after he was informed that officials plan to revoke his resident permit as early as Monday. “It’s just mind-boggling. I can’t even believe it. My family is being expelled from the country.”
He’s not expected to be compensated for his farm if he’s deported, according to observers.
If the expulsion decision is final, “then we will have only a few days for the family to leave,” said Walker, who has been known in Russia, at least until recently, as the “Merry Milkman” or “Cheerful Dairyman.” He said he’s scrambling to find options to appeal the decision.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Russian Embassy in New York for comment.
Walker first arrived in Russia from the U.S. with his parents at the age of 11. They returned to America in 2000, but he came back on his own and eventually turned to farming and raising goats.
In 2014, Walker appeared in a Russian feature program praising the country’s ban on food imports from other nations. He gloated that Russians would have to buy his cheese. “Why, why? Because there won’t be any of your Italian cheese,” he laughed.
But since 2024, Walker has spoken out against gold mining backed by the government in the Altai region, where his farm is located. He also issued critical comments on YouTube earlier this year, saying that the Russian state acts as a punitive body against agricultural operations, driving small and medium-sized farmers out of business.
Walker and his wife, Rebecca, who have three children, have chronicled their life in Russia on social media.
“We call our mission Sent To Siberia, because we believe we have been sent here, not as people were often sent, but as a blessing to us and to be a blessing to others,” they write in the introduction to their posts.
Social media user Jay in Kviv noted on X that Walker was “used by Kremlin propagandists to legitimize the regime [and has] finally met the fate we all knew he eventually would.”
Almost every responding comment insisted that Walker should have seen what was coming. In an American twist, one poster noted: “He reminds me strongly of [a] MAGA who also never thought any bad thing would happen to him. Only others.”
