Russians fleeing Putin face lukewarm welcome in France

Russians fleeing Putin face lukewarm welcome in France

PARIS: Artyom Kotenko’s world collapsed when Russia invaded Ukraine. Born to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, he lived in Russia for most of his life. “I was crushed. I could not live or breathe,” the 50-year-old artist and graphic designer, who is a Russian national, told AFP in Paris.

A week after President Vladimir Putin sent troops to pro-Western Ukraine, Kotenko left behind his old life in Saint Petersburg and went to Helsinki. From there he made his way to Paris, which he says “healed his wounds”. “I stopped feeling like I was suffocating, like I was dying every day. I was able to breathe again,” he said in the 13th district of Paris where pro-Ukrainian graffiti adorns the streets. But much to Kotenko’s disappointment, Paris appeared indifferent to his plight.

Kotenko, who worked at Saint Petersburg’s State Hermitage Museum, the Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater and the Higher School of Economics, realized he could not get a job in France. He wanted to draw on his extensive teaching experience to work with the children of Ukrainian refugees but found out that those jobs were reserved for EU citizens. “This is strange. This has to change