Moscow: Alexey Moskalyov, who fled house arrest before being sentenced in ‘discreditation’ case and then was caught, is being held in Belarusian detention centre 

Russian citizen Alexey Moskalyov, who was slapped with two counts of “discrediting” the Russian army after his daughter had drawn an anti-war picture at school and who fled house arrest before being sentenced, is currently being held in a pre-trial detention centre in the Belarusian city of Zhodzina, the press service of Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed in response to inquiries by media outlets RusNews and DailyStorm.

“As of 4 April, the aforementioned citizen has been transferred to a pre-trial detention centre in the city of Zhodzina, where he’s awaiting a deportation decision. Moskalyov is expected to be transferred to the Russian Federation to serve the sentence previously given out by the Yefremov Inter-District Court of the Tula region. According to the information available, the conditions of his detention meet the requirements set by the national legislation,” the ministry states.

On 28 March, the Yefremov Inter-District Court of the Tula region sentenced Moskalyov to two years in a general regime penal colony. He was found guilty of “discrediting” the Russian army because of anti-war social media comments. However, it was later reported that Moskalyov had fled house arrest several hours before the court hearing. Soon after, Belarus’ Ministry of Internal Affairs confirmed that Mosklayov had been detained in Minsk.

At the beginning of March, his daughter Masha, who had drawn an anti-war picture at school in 2022, was sent to a children’s home. She wrote a letter to her father, shared by his lawyer. “Hi Dad, I need you to stay healthy and calm. I’m okay, I love you so much and you should know that you did nothing wrong, I’ll always be on your side and I believe everything you do is right,” she wrote. On 5 April, Masha was released under her mother’s care.