Alexey Moskalyov in court last Monday
Russia and Ukraine
Alexey Moskalyov disappeared from his home overnight Tuesday-Wednesday, hours before he was sentenced to two years in prison for defaming Russia’s armed forces.
A Russian father who fled to avoid being sent to a penal colony after his daughter painted an anti-Ukraine war picture at school was criticized by the Kremlin on Wednesday but won the support of the head of Russia’s private military group Wagner.
The case of Alexei Moskalyov, who was the subject of a police investigation last year over the anti-war portrait painted by his daughter Masha, has resonated widely across Russia and abroad since the father was placed under house arrest this month and moved his daughter into a children’s home.
A new development occurred on Tuesday when Moskalyov disappeared from his home overnight, hours before he was sentenced to two years in prison for defaming the Russian armed forces.
A photo dated March 23 shows Moskalyov at his house where he was under house arrest
Adding to the excitement surrounding the case, he published a letter from Masha, now 13, to her father, who is raising her alone. She told him not to give up and urged him to “believe, love and hope”.
In response to a question by a reporter, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated that Moskalyov “was a bad father” and expressed his regret over what he called “the extremely deplorable situation with regard to parents’ performance of their duties.”
He refused to comment on the sudden intervention of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the private military group Wagner, who described Moskalyov’s sentence as “unfair, especially in light of the fact that his daughter Masha will have to live in an orphanage”.
Prigozhin asked the prosecutor to review the verdict, and also asked that Wagner’s lawyer be allowed to work with Moskalyov’s defence.
Moskalev in court last Monday
Moskalyov’s lawyer, Vladimir Belenko, told Archyde.com he supported both requests, even if he was not sure of Prigozhin’s motives. “I am ready to accept any help that would help my clients,” he said.
Later on Wednesday, in a short, expletive-filled audio message, Prigozhin angrily dismissed the notion that his position was motivated by “political ambitions”.
Draw war
Moskalyov, 54, drew the attention of the authorities last April after his daughter Masha, 12 at the time, drew a picture at school showing Russian missiles raining down on a mother and her child.
Masha with the drawing that caused a crisis for her father
The headmaster called the police, who began tracking Moskalyov’s online activity and fined him for comments critical of the Russian army. He was then investigated a second time in December on suspicion of defaming the armed forces, an offense under laws passed shortly after the war broke out in Ukraine last year.
Moskalev’s whereabouts are not known now. Dmitry Zakhvatov, a human rights lawyer, said on Wednesday that Moskalyov had been in contact with him and sent him a copy of a letter Masha wrote to him from the children’s home where she has lived since early March.
And the daughter wrote in the letter: “Hi father, I ask you not to get sick and not to worry. Everyone is good to me, I love you very much and I know that you are not guilty of anything. I am always with you and I am sure that everything you do is right.”
She wrote the letter neatly on lined paper and ended it with “I love you” in English and “You are a hero”.