Belarus Extradites Russian Man Convicted After His Daughter Drew Antiwar Picture, State Media Reports
Belarus has extradited Aleksei Moskalyov, a Russian father who lost custody of his daughter and fled the country after he was accused of online posts critical of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Russian state media reported. news on Thursday.
Moskalyov, 54, a single father, was placed under house arrest in early March and accused of “discrediting” the Russian Army during the war in Ukraine. The arrest came after his daughter, Maria, 13, painted an anti-war picture at school. Maria, known as Masha, was placed in a state-run orphanage after her father was arrested and banned from communicating with him.
At the end of March, Mr. Moskalyov, a pet birder, escape from house arrest, hours before a court in Yefremov, a town 150 miles south of Moscow, sentenced him to two years in prison. He was soon detained in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, an ally of Russia, and held at a detention center in the town of Zhodino.
On Thursday, Russian state news agency Tass quote Natalia Sakharchuk, a spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus confirmed that Mr. Moskalyov had been extradited to Russia. It was not immediately clear if Mr Moskalyov would face additional punishment for evading house arrest.
Moskalyov’s posts on the Russian social networks Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte attracted the attention of authorities in April last year after an art teacher at Masha’s school tried to garner student support for the idea. with the Russian army. Masha’s contribution: photo of mother and daughter holding the flag “Glory to Ukraine” and standing in the path of Russian rockets. “No to war,” she wrote below.
His case has attracted international attention, in part because it raises questions about custody of his daughter.
Russian authorities have yet to determine whether Moskalyov’s guardianship of Masha should be restricted. A hearing last week did not resolve the situation. Maria Lvova-BelovaRussia’s commissioner for children’s rights, said in a unit Last week on the Telegram messaging app Masha’s mother, Olga Sitchikhina, picked her up from the orphanage. According to Vladimir Biliyenko, Mr. Moskalyov’s lawyer, Ms. Sitchikhina has not been involved in the child’s life since the age of 3.
