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MOSCOW — Aleksei Moskalyov didn’t wait to listen to his sentence for “discrediting the Russian Armed Forces” on Tuesday. Years behind bars for posts on social media appeared like a foregone conclusion in modern Russia. So Mr. Moskalyov slipped off his geotracking ankle bracelet and fled from home arrest.
In escaping, Mr. Moskalyov, a single father or mother, left behind not simply his residence however his 13-year-old daughter, Maria — although even earlier than the decision had been learn, she appeared misplaced to him. For the previous month, the kid, referred to as Masha, has been in a state-run orphanage, forbidden to speak together with her father.
Hours after leaving, Mr. Moskalyov, whose location was not recognized on Tuesday, was convicted by a neighborhood court docket and sentenced to 2 years in jail over the posts, which he wrote within the wake of Russian atrocities in Bucha and elsewhere in occupied components of Ukraine.
The case has garnered nationwide consideration due to Masha. For rights advocates, the prospect of long-term separation for father and baby represents a chilling new degree of repression in a rustic the place President Vladimir V. Putin in impact banned protesting, and the place repression appears to escalate by the week.
Different activists have reported being threatened by the police with dropping custody of their youngsters, and a few hear echoes of the Nice Terror of the Stalin period, when the youngsters of these deemed “enemies of state” have been separated from their mother and father. In a single 12 months alone, some 15,000 youngsters have been despatched to orphanages.
“The horror is that the state, represented by the custody authorities, the police, the prosecutor’s workplace, and the courts, consciously, with calculated cruelty, separates father and daughter,” mentioned Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow on the Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace, based mostly in Moscow. “And within the present Putin system, there may be no one to oppose this.”
Masha was positioned into state care in early March, after Mr. Moskalyov, now 54, was detained and positioned in home arrest. She has been unable to talk to him since, in keeping with his lawyer Vladimir Biliyenko.
On Tuesday, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service mentioned that Mr. Moskalyov left his residence at 4:41 a.m., about 11 hours earlier than the decision was introduced within the city of Yefremov, 150 miles south of Moscow. The company mentioned it had no data on his whereabouts.
Mr. Biliyenko mentioned the information of his consumer’s departure had come as a shock.
“I hope all is effectively with him, that he’s alive and effectively,” he mentioned in a message. “Masha, by order of the court docket, is being handed over to the guardianship authorities.”
Masha’s mom has not been within the image for the reason that baby was 3 years previous, and there aren’t any different shut kin to maintain her, Mr. Biliyenko mentioned.
Marina Ovsyannikova, the Russian state tv anchor who made a daring escape from Russia after she displayed an antiwar poster throughout a reside broadcast, mentioned she was positive Mr. Moskalyov was “in good arms.”
“The whole lot goes to be OK for him,” she mentioned.
Mr. Moskalyov’s remedy by the hands of regulation enforcement officers makes clear the lengths the Russian authorities are keen to go to to make it possible for nobody deviates from the Kremlin’s line on the warfare — and that in the event that they do, they’re severely punished.
Earlier than his arrest, Mr. Moskalyov bred decorative birds on his small farm, the place there have been additionally peacocks, pheasants, wild geese, turkeys and chickens, he mentioned in an interview with a Russian rights watchdog, OVD-Information.
Mr. Moskalyov’s posts on the Russian social networks Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte got here to the eye of the authorities final April after an artwork instructor at Masha’s faculty tried to generate help among the many college students for the Russian army. Masha’s contribution: an image of a mom and daughter holding a “Glory to Ukraine” flag and standing within the path of a Russian rocket.
“No to Struggle,” she wrote beneath,
The varsity’s principal denies having alerted the authorities, however the subsequent day, Mr. Moskalyov and his daughter have been taken away from the college by law enforcement officials, together with somebody from baby protecting providers, in keeping with OVD-Information.
Mr. Moskalyov was informed that investigators had discovered caricatures of Mr. Putin and that he was being investigated for a submit that learn: “The Russian Military. The perpetrators are close to us.”
He was fined 32,000 rubles, about $420, and the subsequent day, his daughter was taken away from faculty by investigators from the Federal Safety Providers, or F.S.B., the first successor to the infamous Soviet Ok.G.B.
“For 3 and a half hours they informed me that I used to be elevating the kid incorrectly,” he informed OVD-Information. “They mentioned that they’d take her away from me, and they’d put me in jail.”
The authorities tried to strain father and daughter into publicly supporting the warfare.
“They instructed that Masha lead some type of youth crew in help of the Russian troops,” Mr. Moskalyov mentioned, “however I politely refused — she has lots of courses and actions, she doesn’t have time.”
The incident didn’t finish there. Greater than half a 12 months later, on Dec. 30, Mr. Moskalyov informed OVD-Information, a couple of dozen investigators searched the household residence and took him for questioning.
“Within the afternoon they locked me in a room for 2 and a half hours, turned on the Russian anthem at full quantity and left,” he mentioned. “The partitions shook.”
Then in early March, Mr. Moskalyov was positioned underneath home arrest, and Masha was put within the orphanage.
For the reason that invasion of Ukraine started in February 2022 and the federal government started a pointy crackdown on dissent, virtually 6,000 Russians have been accused of discrediting the military, in keeping with OVD-Information, which additionally tracks political repression. Greater than 2,000 of the instances contain feedback on social media.
A lot of the instances have been resolved with fines, however a repeat offense might be grounds for a legal prosecution and a yearslong jail sentence. Greater than 500 folks have been criminally prosecuted, a few of them youngsters.
The separation of Mr. Moskalyov from Masha shouldn’t be an remoted incident.
Within the far japanese area of Buryatia, Natalya Filonova, an unbiased journalist and activist, was imprisoned after protesting final 12 months over the mobilization of tons of of hundreds of males into the Russian Military. After she broke the phrases of her home arrest in October, she was jailed and misplaced custody of the 16-year-old son of a deceased buddy. The kid, who’s disabled, is now in an orphanage.
Mr. Kolesnikov, the Carnegie fellow, lamented a “soulless system, which crushes the destinies of individuals, together with the little ones.” The regime, he mentioned, appears “extra fearful than within the late Soviet years.”
On Tuesday, virtually a 12 months after the drawing that began in any respect, Mr. Moskalyov’s lawyer arrived in court docket for the decision with one other image by Masha, in addition to a letter from her.
“Dad,” it mentioned, “you’re my hero.”
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