Alexei Moskaliov, a Russian man who was separated from his daughter over a school cartoon about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has been arrested in Belarus after escaping house arrest in Russia, Belarusian authorities announced Thursday.
“(Alexei) Moskaliov was arrested … after a request from the Russian police” and is currently being held in Belarus, a spokeswoman for the Belarusian Interior Ministry told Russian news agencies.
The arrest was confirmed to Reuters by lawyer Dmitry Zakhavatov, who did not provide further details. The news agency SOTA also reports that Moskalyov has been arrested in Minsk, the capital of Belarus – a country linked to Russia.
The case of this father and his daughter has been arousing great outrage in Russia for several weeks now and has become a symbol of repression against those who oppose the military operation launched against Ukraine more than a year ago.
The story goes back to last year, when at school Maria drew a picture of missiles next to a Russian flag targeting a woman and a child next to the Ukrainian flag.
The school principal informed the police, who in turn discovered that the girl’s father had made comments against the offensive on social media.
Moskaliov was placed under house arrest on March 1 and his daughter was sent to a youth institution, where she was forbidden to talk to her father by phone.
The story continued on Tuesday, when a court in Ephrémov, 300 km from Moscow, sentenced 54-year-old Moskaliov to two years in prison for “discrediting” the army. Shortly afterwards, the court announced that the suspect was free.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday it was following the case closely, accusing the father of fulfilling his “parental obligations in a deplorable manner”.
Also on Wednesday, 13-year-old Maria Moskaliova published a letter to her father, who had meanwhile escaped: “I love you very much, you are not guilty of anything, I will always be by your side,” he wrote.
Source: DN
