Lights out. Head of Russia’s leading children’s hospice Lighthouse arrested over 2023 post mourning Ukrainian civilian deaths

Photo: Alexandra Astakhova / Mediazona

Lida Moniava, the director of the prominent children’s hospice Lighthouse (“Dom s Mayakom”), was detained in Moscow under the charges of spreading “fake news” about the Russian army over a social media post marking the anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Investigators formally charged the palliative care pioneer under the paragraph “d”, part 2 of Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code, alleging the offence was motivated by “political hatred”. During questioning, Moniava pleaded not guilty.

Her defence lawyer, Mikhail Biryukov, told Mediazona that the case stems directly from a post published on her Telegram channel on February 24, 2023—the first anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In it, Moniava shared the stories of Ukrainian civilians killed in Russian strikes and appealed for donations to a refugee relief fund run by Lighthouse.

From Moniava’s Telegram post:

“For a year now, my country has been sending missiles, tanks, and soldiers into Ukraine. For a year, innocent people have been dying because of this.

In April, at Easter, Russia fired missiles at Odesa. A missile struck a block of apartments, killing three-month-old Kira, her mother, her grandmother, and many others. Her dad survived—he had gone out to the shop to buy an Easter cake at that exact moment. In July, Russia fired missiles at the city of Vinnytsia. Four-year-old Liza, a little girl with Down’s syndrome, was killed. She and her mother were on their way to a session with a developmental specialist. Many other people were also killed that day. In October, Russia fired missiles at Kyiv. Oksana Leontieva, a paediatric doctor who performed bone marrow transplants, was killed on her way to work.”

A hearing to determine Moniava’s arrest conditions is scheduled for tomorrow at the Simonovsky District Court, Biryukov said. While the formal petition had not yet been filed at the time of reporting, the defence anticipates investigators will request that she be remanded in custody at a pre-trial detention centre.

Moniava has worked in the non-profit sector since 2008. She spent several years as a personal assistant to Galina Chalikova, director of the Give Life foundation, before working to develop paediatric palliative care at the Vera hospice charity. Alongside Vera founder Nyuta Federmesser, she later established the Lighthouse children’s hospice, taking over as head of its charitable foundation in 2018.

Following the start of the full-scale invasion, Moniava set up an independent charity aimed at aiding refugees from Ukraine, the border regions of Russia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. That initiative suspended its operations in September 2025.

In the winter of 2026, she was fined 45,000 roubles (around $500) under administrative legislation for “discrediting” the Russian armed forces. That penalty also concerned three Telegram posts about Russian strikes on Ukraine: the April 2025 shelling of Sumy and an attack near a children’s playground in Kryvyi Rih that killed 20 people.

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