Aleksei and Maria Moskalyov received French humanitarian visas in March 2026 and moved to Paris from Yerevan. For more than a year and a half, they had waited for an invitation to Europe from Germany, but that country’s humanitarian assistance program for Russians was halted and the family never received an answer. Now the father and daughter, who were persecuted in Russia over an anti-war drawing and social media posts, plan to seek asylum in France.
The case of Masha Moskalyova became widely known in the spring of 2022. During an art class, the sixth-grader drew a woman with a Ukrainian flag shielding a child from missiles. The school administration considered the work “anti-Russian” and contacted the police. Most of the pressure then fell on her father, who had also spoken out against the war in Ukraine: he was fined under the law on discrediting the army and later sentenced to two years in a penal colony. Masha was sent to a shelter.
According to Maria, the teacher had asked the class to make drawings supporting Russian troops and the president. The girl interpreted the assignment in her own way, after which one of her classmates, whose father works for the police, questioned her about the picture and reported it to adults. Two days later, security officers came to the school: Aleksei was questioned separately, while Masha was urged to join a youth movement and support Vladimir Putin. She refused.
Before the prosecution, Moskalyov lived in Yefremov in the Tula region, worked in trade, and later kept a small bird farm. After a search of his home in December 2022, he sold the farm at a loss, took his daughter, and moved to Uzlovaya, hoping to disappear from view. However, within a week the security services found them, detained him, and placed him under house arrest. On the eve of sentencing, on March 29, 2023, he tried to flee: he took a taxi to Moscow, then boarded a train to Minsk, but was soon detained in Belarus and transferred back.
Moskalyov said that in the penal colony in Novomoskovsk he was repeatedly sent to a punishment cell.
“They can always find a reason: maybe I held my hands the wrong way, or failed to greet the начальник,”
he recalled, suggesting that the pressure was ordered by security agencies. He said the isolation cell was cold, mattresses were not always provided, and prisoners slept on a metal bed frame. After his release, he said, he feared being arrested again: according to Moskalyov, FSB officers told him they would not leave him alone.
After leaving the colony, the family went to Armenia. They decided to apply to France after Germany failed to make any decision on their request. According to Aleksei, the French embassy in Yerevan issued their visas on March 10. He says he feared possible extradition to Russia, but that did not happen. Maria now wants to enroll in a French school, and the family is preparing documents to request asylum. The girl says she could return to Russia only if the country’s власти change.