\n A Russian girl taken away from her father after she drew a picture in support of Ukraine at school has been handed by authorities to her estranged mother, an official said.\n<\/p>\n
\n The case involving 13-year-old Maria Moskalyova has garnered international attention, as Moscow cracks down on criticism of the offensive in Ukraine.\n<\/p>\n
\n The girl had drawn a woman and a child near a Ukrainian flag and missiles flying at them, with a Russian flag next to them. Her headmistress contacted the police.\n<\/p>\n
\n In early March, Russian authorities separated her from her father, and late Wednesday a Russian official wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) said Maria was in her mother's custody.\n<\/p>\n
\n The girl had not lived with her mother, Olga Sitchikhina, in years, said Lvova-Belova in her statement.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Masha (Maria) at the start did not want to go to her mother,\" Russian children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova wrote on Telegram.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Her position has changed, she told me about it on the phone,\" added Lvova-Belova, who is wanted for her alleged role in \"deporting\" Ukrainian children.\n<\/p>\n
\n AFP was not able to verify Lvova-Belova's account, and activists and lawyers have complained they have had no access to Maria.\n<\/p>\n
\n After being taken from her father Alexei Moskalyov who was being tried for \"discrediting\" the Russian army, Maria was placed in a centre in her small town of Yefremov, south of Moscow.\n<\/p>\n
\n He fled house arrest just before the verdict in the case and was convicted in absentia of \"discrediting\" the Russian army, receiving a two-year prison sentence.\n<\/p>\n
\n Officials in the Belarusian capital Minsk subsequently detained him.\n<\/p>\n
\n Moskalyov was due to appear in a Russian court Thursday where he may lose custody of his daughter, but the court said it still did not know where he was.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Nobody knows' where he is -\n<\/p>\n
\n Moskalyov's lawyer Vladimir Biliyenko told AFP that the court would have to ask Russia's vast prison service where he is.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"That is the only way we will find out where Alexei is,\" he told AFP by phone.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"At the moment nobody knows.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Russia's prison network sometimes takes days or weeks to bring people across the huge country.\n<\/p>\n
\n Biliyenko said that the court had refused him permission to pass on a letter written by Alexei Moskalyov to his daughter before he fled.\n<\/p>\n
\n Local media quoted the director of the rehabilitation centre where Maria was placed as saying that \"social teachers and psychologists\" had worked with the girl.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Kremlin has defended the case against Moskalyov, describing his parenting as \"deplorable.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Last week, after Moskalyov fled house arrest, activists published a letter from Maria to her father, which lawyers confirmed was authentic.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I love you very much and know that you are not guilty of anything,\" the letter read, calling him \"my hero\".\n<\/p>\n
\n He wrote a letter to her, published by his lawyer on monitoring site OVD-Info.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Mashenka, your dad is writing. Please hang in there, people are thinking about how to help you,\" the letter read.\n<\/p>\n
\n He told her she should agree if relatives came to ask for her custody. \"It's better than being in an orphanage,\" he added.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"If they bring you to court, ask for your daddy, ask the judge really hard.\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Russian girl taken away from her father after she drew a picture in support of Ukraine at school has been handed by authorities to her estranged mother, an official said. The case involving 13-year-old Maria Moskalyova has garnered international attention, as Moscow cracks down on criticism of the offensive in Ukraine. The girl had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-115163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n