Alexey Moskalev, whom lawyers could not contact for several weeks, was found in Smolensk. He said that during his arrest in Belarus he was severely beaten

Aleksei Moskalev, convicted in the case of repeated “discrediting” of the army, who was detained in Belarus in early April, has been extradited to Russia and is in a pre-trial detention center in Smolensk. This was reported to OVD-Info by lawyer Vladimir Bilienko, who met with Moskalev.

For several weeks, his defenders did not know where Moskalev was. As the lawyers said, the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia and Belarus did not respond to requests about the whereabouts of their client, the Belarusian human rights activists were not allowed to visit Moskalev.

According to Bilienko, Moskalev told him that during his detention in Belarus he was severely beaten with hands and feet, hit on the chest and back, beat off a muscle on his right leg, and also inflicted several blows on the head and beat his head against the wall.

Moskalev, through a lawyer, conveyed an appeal addressed to activists, a support group, as well as “all caring people” who worry and follow what is happening to him and his daughter. “It is only on people like you that Russia stands,” he wrote.

• Aleksey Moskalev is the father of Masha Moskaleva, a sixth grader who drew an anti-war drawing in class in April 2022. The FSB officers had a conversation with the girl, and Moskalev first drew up a report on the “discrediting” of the army due to comments in Odnoklassniki, and then a criminal case was opened on repeated “discrediting”. On March 28, a court in the Tula region sentenced Moskalev to two years in prison. Moskalev himself was not at the meeting, it was announced at the trial that he had escaped from house arrest. On April 7, Moskalev was detained in Belarus.
• Masha Moskaleva was sent to an orphanage after her father became a defendant in a criminal case. The girl was taken from the shelter by her mother, who for the past few years has lived in another region of Russia and, in her own words, has not seen her daughter for several years, and communicated with her only by phone and through instant messengers.