The Kremlin has broken its silence on the case of a single father who was sentenced to prison after his daughter’s anti-war drawing provoked the ire of Vladimir Putin’s security services.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman told Reporters on Wednesday against the case Alexei Moskalev is not as “simple” as it seems and attacked him for his “deplorable” upbringing.
“As a matter of fact, [it was] very deplorable in fulfilling parental responsibilities and securing the child’s livelihood,” Peskov claimed, saying the case against Moskalev is actually “very old”.
“I don’t want to and can’t go into details, but everything is much more complicated, everything is not that simple,” he said.
His comments came amid growing outrage that the Kremlin appears to be using the single father from the Tula region – and his 13-year-old daughter – as an example for other potential dissenters.
The single father was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday for allegedly “discrediting” the Russian military after his daughter Masha drew a picture at school with the words “No to war” and “Honour to Ukraine”. The very next day, the police picked up Moskalev and his daughter. Prosecutors later claimed they also found comments by Moskalev on social media criticizing the Russian military.
Moskalev escaped from house arrest before he could be taken to serve his sentence, a Russian court said. While this announcement was immediately met with suspicions that something might have happened to him in custody, Maria Ovsyannikovaa former propagandist who made headlines last year with an on-air anti-war protest, called She knew the people who helped Moskalev escape and that he was in “safe hands.”
His daughter has since been declared an orphan by the government following the case against her father. Authorities say she is currently in a children’s rehabilitation center.
in one heartbreaking letter Masha wrote to her father, who was published on Wednesday: “I love you very much and I know that you have done nothing wrong.”
“I believe everything will be fine and we will be together,” she said.
“One day we’ll sit around a table together and remember all of this… I’m proud. Yes dad I can say I’m proud of my dad,” she wrote, adding that she was grateful to have understood “the bitter truth instead of a sweet lie.”
“I beg you – just don’t give up,” she wrote, signing the note: “I love you, you are a hero. My hero.”
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Source : news.yahoo.com