Law enforcement authorities searched the home of Lida Moniava, a prominent advocate for critically ill children’s care, and took her in for questioning as part of a criminal probe into “fakes” about the Russian military, her attorney told Russian media on Wednesday.
“Officially, she is not under arrest. She has not been formally charged,” Mikhail Biryukov told the state-run TASS news agency.
He said officials from the Investigative Committee, Russia’s top investigative body, were questioning Moniava. Moscow’s Simonovsky District Court is expected to rule on pre-trial detention measures, Biryukov said in separate comments to the news outlet RBC.
The charge of spreading false information about the military carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Moniava is the founder of the Moscow-based charity “Lighthouse,” which operates hospices for seriously ill children and young adults in the Russian capital and surrounding region.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moniava created a foundation that provided shelter, medical supplies and food to people fleeing from the war. The organization also later helped Armenians fleeing from conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as Russians displaced from the Kursk and Belgorod regions.
That foundation suspended operations last September due to the dwindling number of refugees arriving in Moscow and the Moscow region.
Moniava was previously detained in January and in February. She was fined 45,000 rubles ($520) after being found guilty of “discrediting” the Russian military in posts on Telegram.
Despite facing pressure from the authorities, Moniava has refused to leave Russia.
“If I leave, critically ill children will end up in nursing homes and intensive care units for longer periods. Knowing that, I doubt I could live happily in some other country,” she wrote earlier this year.
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