Synopsis

Shot in stark black and white, the "Russians" video presents Sting in a series of austere performance settings while a young boy appears in carefully composed tableaux, framed portraits, and dance-like movements. Images of children and Soviet-era visual references give the clip an elegiac, human focus. Rather than staging a conventional narrative, it places the song's Cold War warning against intimate images of childhood, emphasizing the shared vulnerability behind opposing political systems and nuclear rhetoric.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was released in 1985 as a promotional clip for Sting's debut solo era and runs for approximately four minutes.

• Its black-and-white photography gives the video a documentary-like severity, contrasting with the innocence of the children shown throughout.

• Child actor Felix Howard appears in the video as the boy. Howard later became known for modeling and acting work.

• The opening incorporates audio from the Soviet television news program "Vremya," including the voice of broadcaster Igor Kirillov.

• "Russians" borrows its central melodic theme from the "Romance" movement of Sergei Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kije Suite." That connection helped give the video its distinctly Russian musical and visual atmosphere.

• Sting later explained that the song was inspired partly by watching Soviet television through a satellite receiver at Columbia University. He was especially struck by the care given to Russian children's programming.

• The song and video gained renewed cultural relevance in March 2022, when Sting performed "Russians" again and connected its plea for shared humanity to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.