I arrived at my Yerevan Airbnb as the previous occupant locked the door on his way to more permanent digs. Alexei is a twenty-something software developer from Minsk, active in the movement that brought hundreds of thousands of Belarusians on to the streets after the stolen presidential election of 2020. As the authoritarian president and Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko began mass arrests, Alexei fled to Kyiv, bringing his work with him into exile. There he met a local tech-geek girl, Yelyzaveta, and started a new life, only for that to be ripped apart by Putin six months ago. The winds of war blew the couple first to Poland and now to Armenia, where both are part of an emerging scene of well-educated Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian refugees from Putin’s war. This in a traditionally pro-Russian country.

Armenia was itself attacked by Azerbaijan in the autumn before last. Moscow brokered a ceasefire under which Russian troops secured what remains of Armenian territory in Nagorno-Karabakh. Ninety thousand Armenians fled the territories lost to Baku. After the war, Armenia’s traditionally dominant political factions launched months of protests, and it was assumed this would crush the contradictorily liberal-populist premiership of Nikol Pashinyan, himself swept into power by street protests in 2018.