As Russia seeks to strip Arshak Makichyan of his citizenship, he says negotiating with Putin on the Ukraine war or the climate crisis is impossible – and the west must act now for survival
Arshak Makichyan made a name for himself as Russia’s, protesting for change in a country where oil and gas exports have propped up the country’s economy for decades.
“Even though I was born in Armenia, I am part of Russian culture, I love Russia, I was fighting for Russia for years, I was risking my freedom for years,” said the activist in an interview over the phone on his 28th birthday last week. “And now I don’t know what to do.” and melting permafrost and growing desertification in Russia’s south. But it remains a niche concern for most of the country.
“I was connecting the dots between the human rights crisis and climate crisis,” he said. “Of course this war was a red line for a lot of people. That’s why I am calling Putin a war criminal and a killer. Because before the war I was thinking that maybe it’s better not to be that harsh on him. But now I think it’s a moral obligation to tell things as they are.”
They decided to marry this winter so that if they were arrested, they would have the right to see each other in prison. Their wedding day, 24 February, turned out to be the same day that Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. Makichyan wore a white shirt bearing the words “Fuck the war” in blood-red lettering.
Now outside Russia, he said they were shocked by the indifference that many Europeans were showing toward the war.
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