what happened to fpsrussia
FPSRussia (the YouTube gun channel fronted by Kyle Myers as “Dmitri”) stopped making videos mainly because of a mix of tragedy, legal trouble, and changes in YouTube and his own life.
Quick answer
- The channel went inactive after April 2016 and hasn’t come back in its old form.
- A key producer, Keith Ratliff, was found dead in 2013, which hit the project hard.
- Federal raids and later felony charges over drugs and firearms laws made Kyle a “prohibited person,” so he legally couldn’t keep doing the same gun content.
- Kyle is still around online, especially via the podcast Painkiller Already (PKA) and guest appearances, but not as FPSRussia with explosions and guns.
Mini timeline
- Peak popularity (2010–2012)
FPSRussia blew up by showing real firearms and explosives, often tied to video‑game style weapons, and became one of the biggest gun channels on YouTube.
- Death of producer (2013)
In January 2013, producer and firearms supplier Keith Ratliff was found shot in his own gun shop, with guns and surveillance gear missing; the case was ruled suspicious, but no one was charged.
The channel paused briefly, then resumed, but fans generally see this as the start of the decline.
- ATF raids and investigation (2013 onward)
Federal agents raided Myers’ property looking for illegal explosives or improvised devices related to what viewers saw in the videos.
Nothing major came of the first raid in terms of prison time, but it put the channel under serious scrutiny and made filming big explosive stunts much riskier.
- Channel abruptly stops (2016)
After a couple more years of uploads, FPSRussia stopped posting new videos around April 2016 with no official on‑channel explanation.
At the same time, YouTube was tightening rules around firearms, explosives, and monetization, which likely made the business much less viable.
- Felony conviction and gun ban (late 2010s)
Myers was later convicted on federal charges tied to marijuana and firearms (often described as having cannabis concentrates alongside guns), which legally barred him from owning firearms.
Once he became a convicted felon, he couldn’t legally possess the kind of weapons that made FPSRussia what it was, effectively killing any realistic chance of reviving the original format.
- What he’s doing now (up to mid‑2020s)
Kyle has been active as a co‑host on the long‑running podcast Painkiller Already , where he talks openly about his legal issues, prison time, and why FPSRussia ended.
He’s also appeared in various interviews and clips that circulate on Reddit and gun forums, but not as a full‑time gun YouTuber anymore.
Different viewpoints fans share
- “System took him down” view:
Some fans and forum posters argue that he was “too big” and made guns look too fun for younger audiences, so authorities and platforms had an incentive to clamp down.
- “He pushed the limits” view:
Others say the mix of explosives, very visible weapons, and later drug involvement simply made legal trouble inevitable, and that once you’re a felon, losing firearms rights is the predictable outcome.
- “Combination of bad luck and bad choices” view:
A more middle take is that Ratliff’s unsolved death was terrible luck, but the later decisions around drugs and guns while under scrutiny were self‑inflicted and closed the door on the channel for good.
Is there any “latest news”?
There’s no credible sign of a real FPSRussia comeback as of the mid‑2020s; what “latest news” you see now is usually:
- New interviews or podcast clips where Kyle retells the story.
- Occasional articles doing retrospectives on “what happened to FPSRussia.”
So if you’re searching what happened to fpsrussia today, the short version is: tragedy, federal attention, a felony conviction, and evolving platform rules combined to end the channel, but Kyle himself is still online, just in a different role.
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.