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RIGA, Latvia — A Russian court on Tuesday ordered a two-year prison sentence for the single father of a 13-year-old girl who drew an anti-war picture in school’s art class, in a case that led to the daughter being seized by authorities and in placed in an orphanage.
But in an amazing twist, the father, Alexei Moskalyov, 54, escaped from house arrest on Monday night and chose not to wait for the near-certain guilty verdict after prosecutors called for the two-year sentence on Monday.
Moskalyov was convicted under Russia’s draconian “discrediting of the military” laws, enacted after President Vladimir Putin ordered his brutal invasion of Ukraine last year. The laws ban all forms of anti-war dissent and are part of a wave of political repression that has only worsened as Russia’s war effort faltered.
Moskalyov, from Yefremov, a town near Tula, about 150 miles south of Moscow, was charged in December with anti-war postings on social media. But he and his daughter Maria were targeted by authorities from April last year, when she was denounced by her teacher after she painted a picture in her elementary school art class that read “No to War” and “Honour of Ukraine.” was standing.
In the picture, Maria, then 12, drew a woman standing in front of the Ukrainian flag and protecting a child from missiles. Her sixth grade had been assigned to draw a patriotic picture of Russian soldiers. The headmaster reported Maria to the Russian authorities. The teacher reported Maria to the school principal, who called law enforcement.
Earlier this month, Moskalyov was placed under house arrest and his daughter was taken to an orphanage by authorities without access to family, friends or supporters. They tried to reach her on her cell phone but it was never answered.
A court hearing over the curbing of Moskalyov’s parental rights was scheduled for next month, but the guilty verdict and jail sentence meant he would only see her after his release from a prison colony.
Moskalyov joins a growing number of political defendants who have escaped house arrest and are facing harsh sentences for their anti-war opinions or criticism of Putin’s government.
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The verdict in the Moskalyov case came just over a week after Putin ordered an even tougher crackdown on anti-war activism and dissidents, claiming “enemies” were trying to destroy Russia from within.
Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court this month issued an arrest warrant for Putin, charging him with war crimes in connection with the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
Since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, he has directed the harshest repression since Soviet times while building an intolerant, militarized society where schools disseminate government war propaganda and children and teachers who express anti-war views are punished or harassed .
“The message is simple: we’re going back to the days of the Soviet Union, when people said one thing in their kitchen and another in public, and children need to be taught from an early age what to say in public,” he said Andrei Morev, a Moscow deputy from the opposition Yabloko party who is deeply interested in the Moskalyov case.
Morev said family attorneys believed the state was illegally holding Maria against her and her father’s will. He said the director of the orphanage had claimed without evidence that the child was not being held against her will. Morev himself was arrested last summer and fined about $650 for discrediting the military.
As human rights monitors report a growing number of arrests and harsher prison sentences for Russians opposed to the war in Ukraine, fear and concern mounts in society as classmates and neighbors inform each other to quell the few voices that disagree speak out for peace.
After several military setbacks and mounting casualties, and with Western sanctions beginning to weigh on Russia’s budget, Putin is bracing for a protracted war and anticipating an eventual collapse of Western unity in support of Ukraine.
After Maria’s anti-war drawing was reported to the authorities, the Federal Security Service or FSB, Russia’s main successor to the KGB, questioned the girl, questioned her father and told him he was raising her “wrong”.
He was initially charged with anti-war posts on social media and fined $425. But additional charges were filed in December accusing him of discrediting the military. Prosecutor Oleg Timakov on Monday asked for a two-year prison sentence and a three-year ban on internet use after his release.
A girl drew an anti-war picture at school. Russia arrested her father.
The family’s lawyer, Vladimir Bilienko, was finally admitted to the orphanage on Tuesday, a month after Maria was taken into custody there, but was denied access to her and told she was “at a cooking competition.”
He received a letter from Maria to her father and pictures she had drawn of rabbits and a butterfly, and another of a dog. Her letter ended with a picture of a heart and the words: “Dad, you are my hero,” Bilienko said on the Telegram channel of the legal rights group OVD-Info.
An independent local lawmaker, Olga Podolskaya, a family supporter who has been trying to see Maria for weeks, was expelled from the orphanage on Tuesday.
Bilienko described the verdict as “absolutely unjust” and announced that he would appeal. He said he and others would push for Maria’s release from the orphanage into the care of relatives or family supporters. Activists have been in touch with their relatives “to build their kinship feelings,” he said.
“If relatives apply, they will be given priority according to the law, but if it is decided that there are no decent candidates for custody, she can be placed in an orphanage,” he said.
Bilienko said he learned of his client’s escape from house arrest from the court’s press secretary on Tuesday after unsuccessfully trying to reach him in the morning.
Morev said the case has received little coverage in Russian state media, so few Russians know about it. In Yefremov, many supporters of the family filled the court during an earlier hearing. But he said supporters of the war have been trying to stir up anti-Moskalyov sentiment in recent weeks.
“The public of those in power on social media is trying to create an atmosphere where everyone in town is against Alexei, claiming he’s a drug addict, an alcoholic, or a horrible person,” he said.
To see Russia’s secret anti-war art: Meet at a bus stop. In the dark. phones off.
Russian human rights group Memorial, which last year was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, said in a statement on Tuesday that Moskalyov had been prosecuted for his political views and called for the criminal case to be dropped and for his daughter to be reunited. (Her mother has been separated from the family for a decade.)
“The prosecution of Moskalyov is motivated by his political views and is aimed at the involuntary cessation of civil activity by critics of the authorities and intimidation of society as a whole,” Memorial said in a statement. “This violated the right of his minor daughter Maria Moskalyova to live with her family.”
According to OVD-Info, at least seven children were accused of their anti-war positions last year. A sixth-grader, Kirill, in Moscow was interrogated by authorities last March after he asked a history teacher why Putin “started the war.” His teacher had told the class that Nazism was flourishing in Ukraine.
In October, a fifth-grade student, Varya Galkina, also in Moscow, was denounced by her school principal over a social media avatar and a poll posted on social media. She and her mother, Elena Zholiker, were arrested by the police. Zholiker was found guilty of improperly fulfilling her parental responsibilities and warned her that she could lose her parental rights.
More than 500 Russians were prosecuted for speaking out against the war, according to OVD-Info, and thousands faced administrative penalties.
Natalia Abbakumova contributed to this report.
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