‘Russian Popeye’: Man who injected Vaseline oil for giant biceps now faces possible arm amputation

A Russian man who became infamous online for turning his arms into cartoon-sized biceps is now reportedly at risk of losing both of them. Kirill Tereshin, widely known as the “Russian Popeye”, spent years injecting his arms with oil and petroleum jelly to make them look unnaturally large.

After multiple health scares, surgeries and repeated warnings from doctors, Russian media now report that severe complications mean amputation is on the table.

Who is he, and how did it start?

Kirill Tereshin first drew attention in 2017, when photos and videos of his swollen arms began circulating online. He was in his early twenties, from Russia, and quickly picked up nicknames like “Russian Popeye” and “Bazooka Hands” because his biceps looked more like inflated balloons than muscle. He has openly explained that the transformation was deliberate and driven by insecurity. He said he believed outsized arms would help him attract women he felt were out of his league. In interviews he has talked about wanting “beautiful” women and suggested it was “impossible for an ordinary guy to date such girls”, so he tried to stand out by radically altering his body.At first, he said, he experimented with household oil. In a 2018 interview with Stavropol Komsomolskaya Pravda, he described boiling vegetable oil in a saucepan and injecting five millilitres daily, a process he later replaced with Vaseline oil, which gave him the “huge gains” but ultimately the severe medical consequences.

“First of all I began to inject vegetable oil, I boiled it in a saucepan and then injected five millilitres every day. But I began to understand that oil was leaving the muscle after two weeks. As a result I came to Vaseline oil, as a result in half a year I made huge gains for myself.” Those “gains” were not muscle. Over time he reportedly had around three litres of petroleum jelly and other oil-based mixtures pumped into his arms. The aim was to look huge, not to get stronger. The obsession did not stop at his arms. After years of attention for his biceps, he turned to his face as well. He has said he spent roughly $15,000 on filler to change his appearance, enlarging his lips, cheekbones and jawline, and shaping his forehead.

At one point he claimed he “looks like the Joker” and has also talked about wanting to look more like an “alien”. Much of this work, he admitted, was done against medical advice.

The injections had predictable medical consequences. The thick petroleum jelly and oils were never meant to be inside human tissue; they blocked blood flow, damaged muscle and formed dense, immovable masses inside his arms. Doctors quickly warned that the injections were starving his arms of oxygen, but the risks extended far beyond aesthetics.

They cautioned that the substances could trigger infection, kidney damage, sepsis and, ultimately, the loss of his arms if they were not urgently removed. Over the past few years, Tereshin has undergone several rounds of surgery to extract the material and cut away dead muscle. Surgeons removed hardened jelly and necrotic tissue to try to preserve what remained of his arms. He has shown himself in hospital more than once, bandaged and swollen, and told followers that he was “getting rid of this nightmare”. He has also acknowledged regret. Looking back on his decisions, he said:“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 operations, his arms remained large and deformed. Earlier this year he posted footage from hospital, flexing swollen, oddly shaped biceps and telling viewers he was having “surgery to remove the biceps”. In June, he shared photos with his more than 200,000 Instagram followers showing his arms heavily bandaged. One image showed blood leaking through the dressing.

He captioned it: “Surgery to remove the biceps.

”

In follow-up clips, his arms appeared smaller than before but still obviously damaged. In one video he mimed a cutting motion to the camera and pointed at his shrunken biceps. Many of the comments underneath were no longer laughing or cheering him on. People were relieved he was finally listening to doctors, and worried about whether it was too late.

Why doctors now say he could lose both arms

The latest reports from Russian media suggest his situation has become critical.

They say doctors have warned that he now faces a serious risk of amputation in both arms because of severe infection and the condition of his tissue after years of injecting and partial removals. According to those reports, specialists have told him that to save his arms he needs multiple skin grafts, along with further surgical work to remove damaged areas and reconstruct what is left. That would require a team including a vascular surgeon, a plastic surgeon and reconstructive specialists working together to reduce the size of his arms and restore circulation and coverage.

For now, though, they reportedly consider him too unwell to undergo such a complex procedure safely. If his condition cannot be stabilised enough for surgery, amputation becomes the fallback option to protect his life. In recent posts, Tereshin has said he is now getting his jaw fillers removed after four years, expressing a desire to “be all natural, a 29-year-old again,” signalling his wish to undo the past rather than escalate it.

The man who once chased extreme size to stand out online is now staring at the possibility of living without the limbs he tried so hard to enlarge. His case has become a stark example of where unregulated, do-it-yourself body modification can lead: from viral notoriety to irreversible harm.