She made an anti-war drawing as a child in Russia. Four years on, she’s still living with the fallout

Masha Moskalyova has spent a quarter of her life in jeopardy or on the run because of a picture she drew when she was just 12 years old.

Four years on, she and her father are living in hiding in a small village in eastern France and still worry about their safety. One of the few things they still have of their former lives in Russia is the drawing itself.

“Even though it’s a child’s drawing and seems so simple, who could have expected it to have such consequences?” Masha says, as we consider the drawing together. Drawn in colored pencil, it shows a mother protecting her child from the bombs being launched from Russia. A Ukrainian flag reads “Glory to Ukraine,” while a Russian flag beside says, “No Putin, no war.”

She drew it just a few weeks after Russia had invaded Ukraine in 2022. In her hometown of Yefremov, about 300 kilometers (185 miles) south of Moscow and about halfway to the border with Ukraine, Masha’s teacher had asked the class to draw pictures supporting Russian troops. Most of the children drew tanks, or the letter Z, used by Russia as a pro-war symbol. Masha, who is now 16, decided to do something else.

“I drew the situation as I actually saw it, what I believed to be the truth,” she says. “After the lesson, one of my classmates, who had seen the drawing, came up to me. Perhaps she was the one who reported it, leading to everything that followed. In any case, the drawing ended up in the hands of the police. And that was when all our problems began.”

Shortly after that her father, Alexey Moskalyov, was charged with “discrediting the Russian military” and sentenced to two years in a penal colony. Masha, whom he’d been raising alone, was sent to an orphanage.

After his release, the pair fled, traveling through Armenia and onto France, where they arrived earlier this year and where they have been given a temporary visa.

A dog that Masha had been given in the orphanage has now arrived from Armenia, which she is pleased about. Still, what’s striking is how alone they seem, with nothing of their former lives and only each other for company.

Alexey’s health is fragile because of his time in jail and Masha is now schooled in a language she doesn’t speak. Both fear for their safety. But Alexey says he is just proud of his daughter.

“Everything I’ve lost, everything I had in Russia, is compensated for by the fact that we can now speak freely and tell the truth,” he says. “By the fact that we are now in a country where people are not persecuted for their words or their opinions.”

And words are exactly what Masha intends to keep using. Outside of school, Masha spends her time trying to reach audiences inside Russia and beyond, through YouTube and social media. And her criticism now extends to US President Donald Trump’s handshake with his Russian counterpart.

“I want to say that what Trump is doing is terrible,” she tells CNN. “The fact that the president of a free country shakes hands with a murderer,” she says, holding Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible for the deaths caused by the war in Ukraine. “The fact that you could say he is being controlled by him is another matter altogether.”

Going home remains a distant prospect. “I would return to Russia with enormous joy,” Masha says. “But when will this regime change? I don’t know. How many decades will it take? How many decades before Russia becomes a democratic and free country?”

It is hard to fathom that a single child’s drawing could have angered the Russian authorities as much as this one did, but Masha seems to get it. After all, the point of authoritarianism is that it cannot allow any dissent, however childish.

Courtesy of Alexey Moskalyov

“Here was a child who spoke the truth, who wasn’t afraid,” she says. “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 last four years have clearly taken their toll on Masha, who seems mature beyond her years and graver than any 16-year-old should be.

Perhaps the most surprising thing is that after everything she has endured – being sent to the orphanage, her father’s incarceration and their time on the road – she still has the drawing in her possession.

It was as they were preparing to flee their home that she found it on a shelf by chance, among her childhood notebooks.

“It hadn’t been confiscated,” she says. “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.”

So, today, one of Masha’s only belongings from her former life is the very drawing that ended it.

玛莎·莫斯卡廖娃因为 12 岁时画的一幅画，一生中有四分之一的时间都生活在危险之中或亡命天涯。

四年过去了，她和父亲隐居在法国东部的一个小村庄里，仍然担忧着自身的安全。他们仅存的几件能让人想起在俄罗斯生活的东西之一，就是这幅画。

“虽然这只是一幅儿童画，看起来也很简单，但谁又能想到它会带来如此大的影响呢？”玛莎一边说着，一边和我们一起欣赏这幅画。画是用彩色铅笔画的，描绘了一位母亲保护她的孩子免受来自俄罗斯的炸弹袭击。一面乌克兰国旗上写着“荣耀归于乌克兰”，旁边一面俄罗斯国旗上写着“没有普京，就没有战争”。

这幅画是她在2022年俄罗斯入侵乌克兰几周后创作的。在她的家乡叶夫列莫夫，位于莫斯科以南约300公里（185英里），大约在乌克兰边境的一半路程处，玛莎的老师要求全班同学画画来支持俄罗斯军队。大多数孩子画了坦克，或者俄罗斯用来表示亲战的字母“Z”。现年16岁的玛莎决定画点别的。

“我把我当时看到的情景，我认为的真相，画了出来，”她说。“下课后，一个看过这幅画的同学走过来跟我说话。也许就是她告发了我，才导致了之后的一切。总之，这幅画最终落入了警察手中。而我们所有的麻烦也正是从那时开始的。”

不久之后，她的父亲阿列克谢·莫斯卡廖夫被指控“诋毁俄罗斯军队”，并被判处两年流放。他独自抚养的玛莎被送进了孤儿院。

他获释后，两人逃亡，途经亚美尼亚，最终抵达法国。他们于今年早些时候抵达法国，并获得了临时签证。

玛莎在孤儿院时得到的一只狗从亚美尼亚寄来了，她很高兴。然而，最令人惊讶的是，她们看起来如此孤独，失去了所有过去的生活，只有彼此相伴。

阿列克谢因为坐牢身体虚弱，玛莎现在学习的语言她根本不会说。两人都担心自身安全。但阿列克谢说，他为女儿感到骄傲。

他说：“我在俄罗斯失去的一切，我曾经拥有的一切，都因为我们现在可以自由地说话、说出真相而得到了补偿。因为我们现在生活在一个人们不会因为言论或观点而受到迫害的国家。”

玛莎打算继续运用文字的力量。课余时间，她通过YouTube和社交媒体，努力接触俄罗斯国内外的受众。如今，她的批评对象也包括美国总统唐纳德·特朗普与俄罗斯总统的握手。

“我想说，特朗普的做法太糟糕了，”她告诉CNN。“一个自由国家的总统竟然与一个杀人犯握手，”她说道，并指责俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京应对乌克兰战争造成的死亡负责。“至于说他受普京控制，那就是另一回事了。”

回家仍然遥遥无期。“我非常想回到俄罗斯，”玛莎说，“但是这个政权何时才能改变？我不知道。需要几十年？俄罗斯要多久才能成为一个民主自由的国家？”

很难想象一幅孩子的画作竟能激怒俄罗斯当局，但玛莎似乎明白其中的缘由。毕竟，专制主义的本质就在于它不容许任何异议，哪怕是幼稚的异议。

承蒙阿列克谢·莫斯卡廖夫惠允

“这是一个敢于说真话、无所畏惧的孩子，”她说。“如果这个孩子不是孤例，如果有很多像她一样的孩子，如果不是一个青少年而是成千上万个青少年，不是一个成年人而是一百万人，那么这才能真正让俄罗斯变得更好。”

过去的四年显然对玛莎造成了很大的影响，她看起来比同龄人成熟得多，也比任何一个 16 岁的女孩都更加沉稳。

最令人惊讶的是，在她经历了所有的一切——被送进孤儿院、父亲入狱以及他们四处漂泊的日子——之后，她仍然保留着这幅画。

就在他们准备逃离家园的时候，她偶然在书架上发现了它，就在她童年时代的笔记本中间。

“它并没有被没收，”她说。“他们既没找到它，也没注意到它。或许是因为警察没想到要搜查孩子的物品。”

所以，如今玛莎生前留下的唯一遗物，就是那幅终结她生命的画作。