OMM Newsroom
Masha Moskalyova has spent a quarter of her life in danger or on the run because of a picture she drew when she was 12. Four years later, she and her father are living in hiding in a small village in eastern France and remain worried about their safety, CNN reported.
The drawing, made with coloured pencils, shows a mother protecting her child from bombs launched from Russia. Beside a Ukrainian flag bearing the words “Glory to Ukraine,” a Russian flag reads “No Putin, no war.” It is one of the few things Masha and her father still have from their former lives in Russia.
She made it a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. In Yefremov, her hometown about 300 kilometres south of Moscow and roughly halfway to the Ukrainian border, a teacher had asked the class to draw pictures supporting Russian troops. Most pupils drew tanks or the letter Z, used as a pro-war symbol in Russia. Masha, now 16, chose a different subject.
“I drew the situation as I actually saw it, what I believed to be the truth,” she said. After the lesson, a classmate who had seen the picture approached her. Masha said the classmate may have reported it; the drawing eventually reached the police, and “that was when all our problems began.”
Soon afterwards, her father, Alexey Moskalyov, was charged with “discrediting the Russian military” and sentenced to two years in a penal colony. Masha, whom he had raised alone, was sent to an orphanage.
After his release, the pair fled Russia, travelling through Armenia before reaching France earlier this year. They have been granted a temporary visa. A dog Masha received while in the orphanage has since arrived from Armenia, bringing her happiness. Her father’s health is fragile after his time in prison, and Masha is being educated in a language she does not speak.
Masha speaks out from France
Both father and daughter fear for their safety. Alexey said he was proud of Masha, adding that what he had lost in Russia was compensated for by their ability to speak freely and tell the truth in a country where people are not persecuted for their words or opinions.
Masha uses “YouTube” and social media to try to reach audiences in Russia and elsewhere. Her criticism has also extended to US President Donald Trump’s handshake with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I want to say that what Trump is doing is terrible,” she told CNN. She called it “the fact that the president of a free country shakes hands with a murderer,” holding Putin responsible for deaths caused by the war in Ukraine. She added that the suggestion Trump might be controlled by Putin was “another matter altogether.”
Returning to Russia remains a distant prospect. “I would return to Russia with enormous joy,” Masha said, but she questioned how long it would take for the current regime to change and for Russia to become a democratic and free country.
She said she hoped others would speak out too: “Here was a child who spoke the truth, who wasn’t afraid. And if that child isn’t alone, if there are many children like her, if it’s not just one teenager but a thousand teenagers, not just one adult but a million, then that is what will change Russia for the better.”
The drawing survived the family’s flight
The past four years have taken a toll on Masha, who appears mature beyond her age. Despite being sent to an orphanage, her father’s imprisonment and their time on the road, she still has the drawing.
While preparing to flee their home, Masha found it by chance on a shelf among her childhood notebooks. “It hadn’t been confiscated,” she said. “They hadn’t found it or paid any attention to it. Perhaps because the police hadn’t thought to search through a child’s belongings.”
Her father was released from prison on October 15, 2024. Today, the drawing that brought official scrutiny to the family is among Masha’s only belongings from her former life in Russia.
