A Russian man was arrested after his daughter’s anti-war drawings angered the authorities. The man escaped from house arrest after receiving a two-year prison sentence. He was convicted of defaming armed forces on social media, after the police investigated the daughter’s drawings
A Russian man who was arrested by police after his daughter drew anti-war pictures at a school has been sentenced to two years in prison after being convicted of “defaming the armed forces”. But in a dramatic turn of events, the court spokesman said that the man, Alexei Moskalyov, escaped from house arrest last night and that “his whereabouts are currently unknown.”
Moskalyov, a single parent from the city of Yefremov, 250 kilometers south of Moscow, has been separated from his 13-year-old daughter since he was placed under house arrest earlier this month and she was transferred to a state-run institution. The family said they have faced pressure from police since last April, when his daughter, a sixth-grader, refused to participate in a patriotic class at her school and drew several drawings showing rockets being fired at a Ukrainian family standing under a Ukrainian flag and another drawing with the words “Glory to Ukraine!”
School officials then called the police, who questioned the girl and threatened her father. The police then began scrutinizing Moskaliev’s social media activity, and the father was eventually charged with defaming the armed forces after calling the Russian regime “terrorists” and describing the Russian military as “murderers.”
The case brought criticism from human rights organizations in Russia and led to a campaign to reunite father and daughter. Police said that Moskalyov escaped from house arrest in the early hours of Tuesday morning and that they “started looking for the suspect.” A lawyer on behalf of the family visited the girl at the children’s shelter and left with drawings she made for her father that read: “Dad, you are my hero.”
Moskalyov’s lawyer, Vladimir Bilienko, told the “Guardian” that the girl will be transferred to an orphanage if no relative is found who is willing to take care of her. Since the beginning of the war, a number of politicians and activists have fled the country after being placed under house arrest and awaiting trial for criticizing the war in Ukraine.