Russian punk band postpones St. Petersburg concert after lead singer defends teenager separated from her father following anti-war drawing
A concert by the Russian band Naive scheduled for April 19 has been postponed until the spring of 2024, according to the band’s Instagram page. “The new concert date will be announced later. All purchased tickets are valid and do not need to be exchanged,” says the Instagram post. The group did not give a reason for the delay.
At a concert in Moscow on April 15, the group’s lead singer, Alexander “Chacha” Ivanov, wore a T-shirt bearing the name of Masha Moskaleva and spoke out in support of the girl’s family. Ivanov urged people in the audience to learn more about the case. The audience reacted to Ivanov’s words with applause and started chanting, “Fuck the war!”
Sixth-grader Masha Moskaleva, from the city of Efremov in Russia’s Tula region, drew an anti-war picture during school art class in April 2022, writing, “No to war” and “Glory to Ukraine” on the drawing. Federal agents subsequently interrogated Moskaleva and later charged her single father, Alexey Moskalev, with “discrediting” the army based on some of his own social media posts.
In December 2022, Moskalev was charged with repeatedly “discrediting” the army based on a social media post he wrote about Russian atrocities in Bucha. In early March 2023, Moskalev was placed under house arrest, and his daughter was placed in state custody. A commission on juvenile affairs later filed a lawsuit to limit Moskalev’s parental rights. On March 28, a Tula regional court sentenced him to two years in prison.
Moskalev escaped house arrest hours before his sentencing hearing. Roughly two days later, he was apprehended in Minsk and later extradited back to Russia. On April 5, Masha Moskaleva’s estranged mother, Olga Sitchikhina, collected her daughter from state custody.
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