Arshak Makichyan - a Russian climate campaigner who fled Moscow fearing for his safety - has spoken out about the scale of repression in his homeland.
A Russian climate campaigner who fled Moscow fearing for his safety has spoken out about the scale of repression in his homeland.
The 27-year-old also suggested people in the western world do not understand how hard it is to oppose a regime he now describes as a dictatorship – and says many activists fear being imprisoned or raped. Speaking exclusively to Metro.co.uk from Berlin, he explained: ‘You can be raped, they can torture you, they can kill you, put pressure on your family, they can do anything.
‘Now it is not working like that – they can torture you, they can they can kill you and everything can happen because the situation is completely different.’ ‘It was very strange to have surveillance… I’m not Navalny, I’m not that popular in Russia, but there surveillance even on us… we are just grassroots activists.’He says going to prison is not particularly useful to the cause but most of the tools used by activist before the war, like social media, are now being shut down.But after the invasion of Ukraine, he scribbled anti-war slogans on climate stickers and later ended up arrested.
‘It’s a completely different situation … activists in Russia they are being marginalised… so I think people in the world shouldn’t give advice to Russian civil society, they just need to support them in any way possible.’supports HTML5 video
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