Olga PodolskayaA man detained in Russia over his daughter’s anti-war painting has been released from exile in a case that made global headlines.
The drawing, which reads “No to war” and “Glory to Ukraine”, was painted by Alexei Moskalev’s daughter Masha and reported to police in 2022.
He was later accused of repeatedly criticizing the Russian military on social media and was sentenced to two years in prison in March 2023 for smearing the military.
Video shared online on Tuesday showed him hugging his daughter after leaving the penal colony in the Tula region, while still wearing his prison uniform.
OVD informationRussian human rights groups said his release was reported by OVD-Info lawyer Vladimir Biliyenko.
Moskarev described the two months he spent in a punishment cell during his detention.
He said: “It’s just a torture chamber. It’s just a torture chamber. First of all, the cell is two meters by one meter, do you understand what that is?
“At first, I sat alone, and then they let a second person in. There were two of us sitting in a cell that was two meters by one meter.
“The floors were rotten, rats were everywhere, coming from the sewers, huge rats everywhere.”
Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service was not immediately available for comment and did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
The family’s problems began as early as 2022, when in April Masha, then 12 years old, drew a Ukrainian flag with “Glory of Ukraine” written on it, rockets and a Russian flag with “No to war!”
Moskarev said the school reported his daughter’s drawings to police. He has since been fined for anti-war posts on social media.
But he was charged under the Criminal Code after his apartment was raided in December that year and he was accused of similar offences.
Authorities separated Martha from her father and placed her in a children’s home and later in the custody of her estranged mother.
In March 2023, Moskarev was sentenced to two years in prison.
He did not attend the sentencing hearing because he escaped house arrest and fled to neighboring Belarus, OVD-Info said.
He was later detained and extradited to Russia the next month, the group added.
Last year, town councilor Olga Podolskaya told the BBC she was “shocked”.
“It’s a terrible thing to be jailed for expressing your opinion. Two years in prison is a nightmare.”
The background of this case is that since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the human rights situation in Russia has seriously deteriorated. According to a recent United Nations report.
The investigation details police brutality, a widespread crackdown on independent media and ongoing attempts to use punitive new laws to silence Kremlin critics.
Cases highlighted in the report include that of Artyom Kamardin, Sentenced to seven years in prison for reciting anti-war poetry in public – Behavior deemed by authorities to “incite hatred”.
The report accused the government of trying to spread its views on the conflict among children in Ukraine by introducing a mandatory school curriculum, which officials described as an “important dialogue”.
“Children and their parents who refuse to attend such classes are subject to pressure and harassment,” it added.
