A Russian father who fled the country when he was sentenced to prison after his daughter drew an anti-war picture at school has been detained in Belarus, according to multiple reports. Alexei Moskalev, a single father from the Tula region, had fled from house arrest earlier this week, just hours before a court gave him two years behind bars on charges of supposedly “discrediting” the Russian military. The case has provoked public outrage, as Moskalev’s now-13-year-old daughter has been effectively left orphaned and forced to live in a children’s shelter as prosecutors seek to make an example out of her father. The independent outlet Sota reports that Moskalev was nabbed overnight at an apartment in Minsk where he’d been hiding out; an unnamed source said he was caught after switching on his cellphone. Moskalev’s lawyer, Dmitry Zakhvatov, told MediaZona that Moskalev had stopped answering his phone and that “by all appearances” he was now in custody.
