The hunger-striking Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, sentenced to 20 years in Russian prison after being subjected to a sham trial by a Kremlin-controlled court, is now in a critical condition, his cousin, Nataliya Kaplan, wrote on Facebook on Aug.8.
Sentsov, who is 87 days into his hunger strike, which he started to draw the world’s attention to the 70 Ukrainian political prisoners kept in Russian jails, told his cousin in a letter she received on Aug. 8 that “his end was near and that it was not a liberation.”
“Everything is not just bad. Everything is catastrophically bad. He hardly can get up from bed,” Kaplan wrote.
Sentsov’s heart rate now is 40 beats a minute. He has anemia, heart problems, but has said he is ready to die for justice, his lawyer Dmitry Dinze told the Crimean News Agency website on Aug.7.
The filmmaker is being kept alive by intravenous drips of glucose and nutrients.
Kaplan said Sentsov was asking whether anyone is still paying attention to his hunger strike, as the Russians haven’t passed any letters from Ukraine to him.
“Oleg says he is in the information vacuum right now, and has no clue what’s happening (in the world),” Kaplan said.
EU leaders, politicians and celebrities around the globe have long been calling on the Kremlin to free Sentsov. The movie director was arrested in Crimea by Russian forces in 2014, soon after the Kremlin invaded the peninsula and started its occupation of the Ukrainian territory.
In August 2015, after a year-long sham trial, Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years in Russian prison for allegedly “organizing a terrorist group and plotting attacks against the Kremlin.”
The two key witnesses in the trial later said they had given their evidence against Sentsov under duress.
Russia has ignored all calls to release the jailed Ukrainian. It has several times transferred Sentsov to different prisons, and tried to force him to stop his hunger strike. It has also denied Ukrainian Ombudswoman Lyudmila Denisova permission to visit Sentsov in prison in the Siberian town of Labytangi, more than 5,000 kilometers away from his native Crimea.
Sentsov started his hunger strike on May 14, a month before the start of the Football World Cup in Russia.
Although human rights watchdogs and Russian authorities have tried to persuade him to stop his hunger strike, Sentsov has refused to do so.
“If I die before or during the World Cup in Russia, it will create a resonance in favor of other political prisoners,” Sentsov told Dinze in June.
The European Court of Human Rights has insisted that Sentsov must be transferred to a civilian hospital closer to Crimea. But Sentsov has refused.
“He said he wouldn’t survive the journey,” Kaplan said.
Sentsov also opposes being transferred to the civilian hospital in Labytangi, as “the staff there is aggressive towards him and can do only harm,” Kaplan said.
“This is Russia. I can’t imagine what else can be done for his release… Everything is very bad,” she said.
The hunger-striking Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, sentenced to 20 years in Russian prison after being subjected to a sham trial by a Kremlin-controlled court, is now in a critical condition. (Video by Kyiv Post staff writer Anna Yakutenko)
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that Nataliya Kaplan is Oleg Sentsov’s cousin, not his sister.
