A Russian teenager who was placed in a center for minors after her father was allegedly convicted of discrediting the Russian army in Ukraine is no longer allowed any contact with the outside world, the specialized NGO OVD-Info reported on Wednesday.
“Maria Moskalev, who ended up in a center for minors after her father, Alexei Moskalev, was placed under house arrest, is not allowed to call her,” the organization said after talking to the family’s lawyer.
The story goes back to April 2022, when the 13-year-old student from the Tula region, south of Moscow, made a drawing against the Russian military intervention in Ukraine in an art class. She wrote “No to war” and “Glory to Ukraine” on the cartoon, according to independent Russian agency Meduza. (based in Riga).
In the same month, Moskalev was fined 32,000 rubles (400 euros at the current rate) by a local court for criticizing the Russian offensive on social media.
Nearly a year later, on March 1, police returned to the home of the teen and her father, who were accused of “discrediting the military” with new online publications, Meduza explains.
It was on that occasion that Moskalev was placed under house arrest by authorities and his daughter was taken to a center for minors in Yefremov, the Russian news agency Ria Novosti reported.
An online petition launched in support of the father and his daughter has collected 65,000 signatures so far.
The Russian offensive in Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, is officially called a “special military operation” in Russia, and authorities have introduced a law providing for prison sentences of up to 15 years for any publication of information about the Russian military that is deemed is considered false. .
Thousands of Russians who openly criticized the conflict or alleged abuses by Russian forces in Ukraine were tried and sentenced to fines or prison terms, which became symbols of the continued crackdown on any criticism of the “special military operation”.
In an interview with Lusa released on Saturday, Pulitze Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum, who specializes in Eastern Europe, also recalled the case of the girl and her father, pointing out that these methods “create memories of the Soviet era.” suggest. in the checksum of life and public opinion:
According to the professor at the London School of Economics, during his presidency, Vladimir Putin “tolerated a certain amount of dissent, as long as it was not very popular”, at the level of political parties or independent press during his presidency.
“That has started to change and in the last year it has become very dramatic since the beginning of the war,” he claimed, adding that “now very small signs of disagreement or disagreement with war policy can have very drastic consequences.”
The military offensive launched by Russia in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has so far led to the flight of more than 14.6 million people – 6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 8.1 million to European countries -, according to the latest data from the UN. which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
At the moment, at least 18 million Ukrainians need humanitarian aid and 9.3 million people need food aid and shelter.
The Russian invasion – justified by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russian security – was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending arms to Ukraine and impose political and economic sanctions on Russia.
The UN presented 8,173 civilian deaths and 13,620 wounded as confirmed since the start of the war, underlining that these numbers are far below the real ones.
Source: DN
