Last May, Polina Zhukovskaia, a professional 33-year-old businesswoman Marketing Digital and human rights activist and lawyer Denis Eliseev, 41, decided to leave Russia. Had they stayed, they would soon have been arrested for criticizing Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule, bolstered by the war in Ukraine. “We left Russia five and a half months pregnant, but we did not know what was happening in Argentina. Now we know that there are Russians who have children in Argentina, get documents and return to Russia. We find this dishonest. We do not agree,” Polina explains to Expresso.
“Europe has closed its doors to us. It doesn’t accept Russians. That’s why people are looking to leave through Argentina. It’s not normal for Russians to use Argentina to leave, but, to be honest, everyone has no choice but to protect their families”, thinks Denis. Among the arrivals was this couple. Polina and Denis protested against the war in front of the Ministry of Defense from February 24, 2022. They had already been identified by the regime. All they had to do was leave Moscow, stop in Minsk, Istanbul and Paris, until they reached Buenos Aires.
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