When American patriot Derek Huffman—Texan by birth, welder by trade, believer in the inviolable sanctity of “traditional values”—decided the U.S. public education system had gone too far with its LGBTQ “indoctrination,” he packed up his wife DeAnna, their three daughters (ages 10–12), and their dog—and moved them nearly 5,000 miles away to Russia. What followed reads like a cautionary tale from a Hunter S. Thompson fever dream: from ideological pilgrimage to frontline pawn.
In early 2025, the Huffmans settled in a tiny village about an hour outside Moscow—an enclave built under the banner of Tim Kirby’s “American Village“ initiative. Kirby, an American propagandist turned Putin booster, had pitched a refuge for disillusioned conservatives. The project, launched around 2023, saw only two families move in, the Huffmans being the marquee headline. This “shared‑values“ visa scheme, established in August 2024, targets Westerners seeking traditionalist lenses, offering streamlined residency—and in some cases, fast‑track citizenship—for those who reject “liberal gender norms.”
If you want to check out the website that got the Huffmans all hot and bothered to drop everything and move to Russia, you can do that here. Let me know if you decide to make the move. We’ll follow your story.
The Promise of Citizenship… and a Big Surprise
To prove he was serious about life in his new nation, Derek joined the Russian military. He didn’t expect to be handed a rifle and tossed into the meat grinder of Ukraine—no, he thought he’d weld tanks, maybe document the war as a correspondent. Instead, with zero combat experience and barely enough Russian to order a sandwich, he was rushed through a crash course in soldiering—taught entirely in a language he couldn’t follow—and deployed to the front lines in Ukraine. His wife said it best: he was “thrown to the wolves.”
On Father’s Day, Derek managed to record a video from the war zone. He told his kids he loved them, that he hoped to come home soon, and that he believed what he was doing was important. It was the kind of video you make when you’re not sure there’ll be another chance. Since then, DeAnna has heard little. She’s been left to worry, pray, and post desperate updates to their Telegram channel—one of which was a now-deleted plea to the U.S. government for help. Nobody knows for sure who wrote it, but the message was clear: they were in way over their heads.
The irony is brutal. The Huffmans fled what they saw as a culture war in America, only to land in an actual shooting war. They wanted to shield their kids from the perceived dangers of rainbow flags and pronouns. Now their daughters wait in a cold Russian village while their father dodges artillery shells on foreign soil. This wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t even close. But war doesn’t care about ideology. And when you enlist in someone else’s army, you play by their rules—whether you understand the language or not.
Wife DeAnna: “Thrown to the Wolves”
DeAnna Huffman used to be the upbeat narrator of her family’s big adventure—the smiling face behind the camera on their vlog, HuffmanTime, chronicling their escape from Texas to what they believed was the land of “traditional values.” But lately, that optimism has turned into something else entirely. Her latest videos aren’t about adjusting to life in rural Russia or celebrating their bold decision. Now, they’re raw, emotional pleas from a wife watching her husband get swallowed up by a war he never expected to fight.
In one video, her voice cracks as she says, “He feels like he is being thrown to the wolves right now, and he’s kind of having to lean on faith.” That pretty much says it all. Derek signed up thinking he’d serve in a support role—maybe welding or working as a correspondent—something to show loyalty and earn citizenship, not a front-row seat to artillery fire. DeAnna says they were told he’d get a couple of weeks of training and time to ease into the job. Instead, it was a whirlwind of shouted orders in Russian—a language he barely understands—and then straight to the front lines of Ukraine.
The hits didn’t stop there. According to DeAnna, Derek was even forced to hand over 10,000 rubles—about $125—for his own gear. He’s not getting paid. No benefits. No proper support. Just a foreign uniform, cheap kit, and a clapped-out rifle. It’s the kind of military “welcome” you’d expect from a regime more interested in body counts than consent forms. She’s been begging online for help, not just for sympathy, but for someone—anyone—to intervene and pull her husband out of this disaster.
DeAnna’s tone makes it clear: they were misled. They walked into this situation full of conviction and patriotic fervor—convinced they were escaping cultural decay in America for something more grounded, more righteous. Now she’s left in a freezing Russian village, praying her husband is still alive, while trying to make sense of what went wrong.
What started as a political statement—an act of defiance against what they saw as a morally confused America—has turned into a slow-motion nightmare. And through it all, DeAnna’s voice has gone from hopeful to haunted. Their dream of a better life didn’t die. It got drafted, shoved into a uniform, and sent to the front lines.
Motivation: “Traditional Values“ vs. Woke Shadows
Derek’s odyssey wasn’t hunger‑driven or career‑oriented—it was moral and ideological, driven by a belief that Russia offered a fortress of old‑school Christian ideals. He’d made an earlier trek in 2023 to Moscow, and came back describing it as “cleaner, safer, more orderly … a place that respected our values.”
He told RT in May 2025:
“The final straw was when we found out my daughter Sophia learned about lesbians from a girl in her class… we realized something had to change.”
But meat‑grinder reality doesn’t glorify ideology.
Perhaps if only he had pulled his daughter from that school and placed her in another one. But hindsight is 20/20 and Derek’s immediate whereabouts are unknown.
A Broader Pattern—or a Fiasco?
Americans in Russia? Rare, but growing. Moscow’s propaganda machine trumpets “thousands interested,“ yet only two houses in the “American Village“ reportedly stand occupied. Kirby laments the lack of volume despite outreach to “governors of different regions.”
Still, the gambit reflects a strategic Kremlin effort: target Western conservatives, offer refuge, and use them—especially prone-to-symbolism volunteers—for frontline leverage and soft power.
Who Founded the Town?
It’s a construct of pro‑Putin American blogger Tim Kirby, who’s been living in Russia since 2006. Known online as “TimKirby’s Travel,” he’s the architect of what’s colloquially called the “American Village”—an enclave rooted more in ideology than infrastructure.
Truths in Tatters
How long has Huffman been there? Roughly four months: March arrival, May enlistment, July frontline deployment, and now (as of July 2025) radio‑silence and wife’s online pleas.
This foreigner‑turned‑foot soldier underscores a chilling motif: individuals escaping “woke“ America, only to land inside a foreign, brutal theater of warfare—all at the behest of promises made in another tongue.
Final Word
The Huffman’s saga reads as a hallucinatory fable: a Texas blue‑collar family escaping social change, only to become disposable in a geopolitical blood bath. We glimpse a man seeking belonging and validation, accidentally volunteering to die for an adopted homeland he barely understands. We glimpse a system that weaponizes ideology and desperation alike.
Was it patriotism? Naïveté? Propaganda bait? Hard to say—but when “earning your place“ becomes a bullet‑saturated foxhole, the price of “traditional values“ gets written in rubles and blood.