June 2, 2018
(KyivPost) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has thanked everyone who joined
demonstrations in various countries around the world in support of Ukrainian
citizen Oleh Sentsov, who is serving time at a Russian prison. “I thank
everyone who joined the campaign in support of Oleg Sentsov around the world,
including Germany, France, Italy,
Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, Georgia, the United
Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Portugal, Ukraine, and even Russia. The
whole world is angered by the lawlessness and totalitarian methods of the
Kremlin regime,” Poroshenko said on Facebook on Saturday. Ukraine will continue
to fight for the liberation of all Ukrainian political prisoners and hostages
held in Russia, temporarily occupied Crimea and Donbas, he said.
A campaign in
support for Sentsov and other Ukrainian prisoners (#SaveOlegSentsov) is also to
start at Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv on Saturday. Russian
law enforcement agencies detained Sentsov in Crimea in 2014. He was charged
with setting up a “terrorist group” on the peninsula. The North Caucasus
District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don found him guilty and sentenced him to
20 years in a strict security penitentiary in August 2015. Oleksandr Kolchenko
was also sentenced to 10 years in prison in the same case.
On May 14, 2018,
Sentsov declared a hunger strike, demanding that all Ukrainian citizens held in
Russia be freed. Sentsov is serving time at a strict security penitentiary
(known also as Polar Bear) in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district, and
Kolchenko at IK-6 correctional facility in Kopeisk, the Chelyabinsk region.
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