Voice Message From Missing Family in Taiga

An audio message arrived from the phone number of the Usoltsev couple, who went missing in the Krasnoyarsk region nearly a year ago. The news was shared by researcher and family friend Valentin Degterev.

Degterev received the voice message ten months after the family disappeared in the taiga. In the recording, a woman whose voice resembles Irina Usoltseva«s left a message for her loved ones.

«My dear ones, don»t grieve for us, we won«t be coming back. Problems kept us from living, kept us from being happy together, and now they are gone. A new stage has begun that must be lived through anew. Farewell, my beloved, forgive us for everything,» Degterev quoted the audio recording as saying.

The researcher is confident the message is genuine. He used a special app to check whether the voice had been generated by neural networks. According to him, the program confirmed the recording«s authenticity.

Meanwhile, cybersecurity experts noticed signs of artificially generated speech. The female voice sounded monotone, without emotion, and the pauses between phrases were almost identical, AiF reported.

Degterev suggested the Usoltsevs are alive and simply in hiding. He had previously speculated that only the head of the family remained alive.

The family disappeared in late September 2025. The couple and their young daughter went on a one-day hike and never returned. Emergency services and volunteers organized a search. The last search took place in July 2026 but produced no results.

Since the family disappeared, numerous theories and rumors have sprung up around their case. Some said an accident had occurred, while others claimed the family had gone into hiding deliberately or had been abducted.