"Read, envy. I am a citizen of Russia!" Russophile Agafonov boasted a new passport
Pro-Russian activist happily rephrased Mayakovsky.
"I'll have to pick up the passport later, but those are just formalities. Today at 10:04 AM I became a citizen of Russia. Everything went quickly and even somewhat routinely. They called three surnames, we went in, I filled in my data in the text of the oath, read it out in front of the window of the migration department employee, and received congratulations from him on obtaining citizenship. That's it. Shivers of excitement. The realization of myself in a new capacity of belonging to a great country. I am a Russian repatriate. Not because I went through some legal repatriation procedure. But simply because I returned to my homeland," wrote Artem Agafonov.
Artem Agafonov was born in 1976 in Kazakhstan into a military family. Eventually, he moved to Belarus, becoming an activist of the UCP (United Civil Party). However, after the annexation of Crimea, he decisively supported Russian aggression and expressed clear anti-Belarusian positions.
After administrative prosecution and criticism from propagandists like Ryhor Azaronak, he preferred to leave Belarus.
"Unfortunately, politicians in Belarus are gone. Except for one. Only functionaries remain. People — functions, from the rearrangement of which little will change," Agafonov complained at the time.