Russia charges a children’s hospice founder with spreading ‘fakes’ about the military over a post condemning the war. She faces up to 10 years in prison.

Russian authorities detained Lida Moniava, head of the “House with a Lighthouse” children’s hospice, and charged her with spreading “fake” information about the Russian military motivated by political hatred (Article 207.3, Part 2, Clause D of Russia’s Criminal Code). Officers searched Moniava’s home on the morning of September 2 and brought her in for questioning at the Investigative Committee, Russia’s main law enforcement agency for major crimes. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

The criminal case stems from a post Moniava published on her Telegram channel on February 24, 2023, the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, her defense attorney Mikhail Biryukov told the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona. The post opened with the words: “For a year now my country has been sending missiles, tanks, and soldiers into Ukraine. For a year now, innocent people have been dying because of this.” Moniava went on to describe the killing of Ukrainian civilians, including young children, and urged readers to donate to a fund helping Ukrainian refugees who had ended up in Russia because of the war.

Moniava did not admit guilt during questioning at the Investigative Committee, and authorities are expected to ask a court to send her to a pretrial detention center. Biryukov said a hearing on her pretrial restriction is scheduled for September 3, after 5 p.m., at Simonovsky District Court in Moscow. Investigators have not yet filed the motion, but Moniava’s defense attorneys believe they will seek her pretrial detention.

The House with a Lighthouse foundation told Meduza it was awaiting news about Moniava, adding: “The work of House with a Lighthouse and its support for families continues as usual.”

A court fined Moniava 45,000 rubles in February 2026 under an administrative charge of “discrediting” the Russian military. The penalty stemmed from three posts on her Telegram channel in 2025. In one, she linked to a “Christmas Address to Friends” by Orthodox Christians in emigration, published by The Moscow Times, which spoke of “a terrible war unleashed by the Russian state.” In another, Moniava wrote about the killing of children in a Russian missile strike on Kryvyi Rih. In a third, she described the deaths of the Martynenko family in a Russian strike on Sumy.

After the fine, Moniava said she had no plans to leave Russia. She wrote on social media that the war is “evil” and “a terrible tragedy” that needs “to be stopped as soon as possible”:

Lida Moniava started volunteering in the oncology department of the Russian Children’s Clinical Hospital while still in school. “There I played with the children and helped supply the department with things like disposable materials, laundry detergent, and cleaning supplies,” she said. She continued helping at the hospital while studying at the journalism department of Moscow State University, then went to work for the Podari Zhizn (Gift of Life) foundation, which helps children with cancer and severe blood disorders. From 2008 to 2011, Moniava served as personal assistant to the foundation’s director, Galina Chalikova. After Chalikova died of cancer, Moniava became a coordinator of children’s assistance at the Vera foundation, which had just launched a program of targeted aid for terminally ill children.

Moniava went on to co-found the House with a Lighthouse children’s hospice with Nyuta Federmesser, who created the Vera foundation, and headed the charitable foundation of the same name, which supports children’s hospices in Moscow and the Moscow region and helps severely ill children and young adults up to age 30.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Moniava launched a separate fund to help refugees from Ukraine, Russia’s border regions, and Nagorno-Karabakh. It suspended operations in September 2025.