Story By: Feza Uzay, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash
The father of eight-year-old influencer Milana ‘Mila’ Maxanets – who made the headlines for starting a high-profile relationship with a boy influencer aged 13 has revealed that he is “shocked” by the romance and his ex-wife’s apparent support for it.
A row erupted after Russian child model and influencer Mila started seeing 13-year-old influencer Pavel ‘Pasha’ Pai with rumours surfacing that they had started living together.
The eight-year-old girl’s father has since spoken out against the relationship which they say was designed to boost the profiles of the two youngsters involved.
Alexander Maxanets said he was “shocked” by the news, adding that he and the girl’s mother, Daria Maxanets, separated in 2019.
He said he was trying to get in touch with his daughter after the couple’s divorce and offer his help, adding: “I am really shocked at what’s going on. This is all, to put it mildly, very wrong.”
After rumours surfaced that the two children had started living together, Daria said: “Milana said in a post that she was going to sleep over with Pasha. It was a family visit. We are all friends.”
According to the local news site Kyiv VGorode, the mother does not see anything wrong with the children’s relationship and encourages them to pose for content that many consider being inappropriate.
Netizens were outraged by the pair being portrayed like an adult couple, with many people claiming a moral line has been crossed with Daria and the boy’s parents reportedly supportive of the relationship.
Lawyer and Criminologist Anna Malyar said on Facebook that the parents are behaving negligently towards their children.
Malyar said: “The girl has millions of subscribers on various social networks who constantly follow her as an idol. So there is a risk that they will begin to imitate their idol and become easy prey for paedophiles.”
She added: “This absolutely goes against the normal sexual development of children.”
The underage couple publishes photos of them together on social networks without oversight from any adults.
A growing number of netizens are calling on the authorities to step in and take the children into care and to block the young couple’s social media accounts.
Mila currently has over 500,000 followers on Instagram alone while her ‘boyfriend’ Pavel has 82,000.
Local news site Eadaily said the minors ‘married’ each other in a pretend ceremony which their parents encouraged as they believed the story would generate a lot of income on social media.
Malyar concluded her statement by addressing the parents, saying: “The ability to make money by having someone masturbate to your child’s photo is unsafe and as someone who claims to love their child, makes no sense. After all, one of these perverts may well look for this child and potentially rape her.”
According to reports, children’s ombudsman Nikolai Kuleba reported the incident to the public prosecutor’s office, the cyber police and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the police have since opened an investigation.
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