"My family has Russian passports": producer who was kicked out of TNT because of the war switched to Ukrainian

Armen Ohanian, a former creative producer and screenwriter of the cult Ukrainian and Russian projects Star Factory, Comedy Battle, The Bachelor, and others, who was fired from TNT because of his pro-Ukrainian position, now lives with his family in Lisbon. The media personality revealed that his wife and daughter are Russian citizens, so after the full-scale invasion, they decided to emigrate to Portugal, as it was a country that allowed entry for Ukrainians and their families regardless of their citizenship.

The celebrity's parents and brother remained in Russia, which was a great stress for Ohanian himself. The older members of the family argued that they could not stand a third refugee - the family fled from Azerbaijan to Ukraine from the Armenian pogroms in 1988, and then in 2015, the producer took them to his home in Moscow from the shelling in Kramatorsk. He told OBOZ.UA about this exclusively.

"In 2022, when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine took place, practically no one in Russia supported me, and the final breakup took place... Unfortunately, my brother, who left for St. Petersburg even before me, and my parents, whom I took away from the shelling back in 2015, continue to live there. Where could I take them at that time? Where I lived, to Moscow. That was the situation at the time. When I wanted to take them back again after the full-scale invasion, they refused, saying that they did not want a third refugee in their lives. We did not communicate for some time. I couldn't accept that because I was counting on their support," Ohanian said.

Because of his pro-Ukrainian stance, the producer was fired from TNT, where he created most of the channel's most popular projects. Even on the eve of the full-scale invasion, Ohanian felt the tension rising, so he regularly posted in support of his homeland on social media.

"Seeing the tension rising, I posted a lot of stories on Instagram. A few days before the full-scale invasion, my family and I were in another country. We had return tickets to Moscow for February 24. When the invasion happened, I told my wife that we were not going back. She supported me. My wife loves Ukraine very much. And even when we lived in Moscow, she dreamed of living in Kyiv... Then TNT fired me, and I started posting even more and giving out some information to the channel, for which TNT banned all my colleagues from communicating with me," the producer said.

As we have already noted, the Ohanian family decided to look for a new home abroad. The main problem was that his wife and daughter had Russian documents. However, all three found refuge in Portugal. There, the producer decided to switch to his native language. Although he continues to use Russian in everyday life with his family, he tries to teach his daughter Ukrainian.

In addition, in Portugal, Ohanian joined a Ukrainian camp for temporarily displaced school-age children. He not only organizes recreation for young refugees from Ukraine but also spends time with them regularly. The camp is dominated exclusively by the Ukrainian language, and when the daughter of a celebrity joins the camp, no exceptions are made.

"I believe that language is one of the most important criteria for self-identification. And now I identify myself as Ukrainian because of my language. For example, I have almost no Armenian identification, because I don't know the language, my parents didn't teach me, and they are native speakers, but they didn't practice it, so to speak. And because of this, I cannot identify myself as an Armenian. It's not that I'm fencing myself off, but I'm a Ukrainian, and I think it's probably because of the language. When I used to come to Ukraine, I always tried to speak Ukrainian. As for my daughter, I can't say that we speak Ukrainian, but I read to her in this language. I also organize camps for Ukrainian-speaking children only. And when she goes there, I make no exceptions. There she listens to me in Ukrainian. She understands everything," Ohanian said.

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