Masha Moskaleva's mother, Olga Sitchikhina, herself asked to give her daughter to an orphanage when the girl's father, Alexei Moskalev, was accused of repeatedly "discrediting" the army. According to the Telegram channel "We can explain", this was told by the municipal deputy of the city Efremov Olga Podolskaya.
Earlier, Sitchikhina said in an interview with 7 × 7 that she was going to take her daughter from a shelter. "No guardianship! I simply will not allow a stranger to raise my daughter! I won’t leave her!”, – quoted her publication.
According to Podolskaya, Sitchikhina was contacted when a criminal case was opened against Moskalev, but she refused to take her daughter to her and wrote a statement, according to which Masha was sent to an orphanage. This was reported in the Telegram channel of the Commissioner for Children's Rights under the President of the Russian Federation Maria Lvova-Belova. “As for my mother, she practically did not participate in Masha’s life. Now the girl remains in the SRTSN at her request. Relations between them are complex,” the Ombudsman wrote. Information about this was confirmed by acquaintances of the Moskalev family in an interview with We Can Explain.
The channel also notes that Sitchikhina, in an interview with 7 × 7, said that she was going to leave her job (she works on a rotational basis in Moscow as a guard). “My husband and brother will work, no one will sit without money,” she said. But from the database of bailiffs it follows that Sitchikhina regularly has debts on loans – in five years, bailiffs initiated enforcement proceedings in the amount of almost 300 thousand rubles.
According to We Can Explain, Sitchikhina paid off one of her last debts right before her statement that she wanted to take her daughter from the orphanage. Sitchikhina has been unable to repay this debt since the beginning of 2021, "We Can Explain" suggests that someone gave her money to pay off the debt.
Sitchikhina lives in the Tambov region with her husband and 17-year-old daughter. She told 7×7 that she last saw Masha about four years ago.
As Dozhd found out , Sitchikhina also has a 24-year-old son, Nikita, who lives in Kazakhstan with his grandmother on his father's side. His mother left him as a teenager and went to Russia, until recently they did not communicate,
According to State Duma deputy Nina Ostanina, Sitchikhina has five children in total. With whom the other two live is unknown.
Law enforcement agencies became interested in the Moskalev family in April 2022, after Masha drew a picture with the flag of Ukraine and the inscriptions “No to war” and “Glory to Ukraine” in class. The art teacher denounced the child to the director, and the same day the police arrived at the school. Later, a criminal case was opened against Moskalev about the repeated “discrediting” of the Russian army. The case includes posts in Odnoklassniki about the killings of civilians in Bucha and other crimes, the publication of which, according to Moskalev, was not the work of his hands.
On March 2, Moskalev was placed under house arrest, and his daughter Masha was taken to an orphanage. The Commission on Juvenile Affairs went to court to deprive the father of parental rights.
On the night of March 28, on the eve of the trial, Moskalev escaped from arrest. On the same day, he was sentenced to two years in prison for "discrediting the army" again. On the night of March 30, Moskalev was detained in Minsk. Presumably, the man, contrary to security rules, turned on the phone – this is how his location was calculated.