Ukrainian Prisoner of Conscience Sentsov Hastily Relocated

The Crimea-born Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, sentenced last year to 20 years in prison by a Russian military court, has been moved to an undisclosed location in Russia following pressure by human rights groups on his case. Sentsov became a prolific figure in the Euromaidan protest movement following the annexation of his native Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014, and was arrested on charges of terrorism in a case in which every witness testifying against him later claimed being tortured for their confession.

This development comes at a crucial time in Sentsov’s case. After an appeal to Russia’s Supreme Court was denied in November, work by Ukraine’s government to free the writer-director has taken to the unforthcoming diplomatic channels of two nations in an undeclared war.

Oleg Sentsov is able to receive letters while imprisoned, even while his location is undisclosed (Tatiana Shchur.)

Negotiations between the two states in Minsk, Belarus seemed for a time to have reached an agreement on trading Sentsov and his alleged co-conspirator Aleksandr Kolchenko for two Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine’s separatist Donbas region. However, Sentsov’s disappearance over the weekend raises new questions as to the status of those negotiations.

The filmmaker’s prison conditions had been improving since being monitored by human rights groups including the Public Oversight Commission, whose monitor Tatiana Shchur has met with the activist at a number of prison locations. Shchur told the Ukrainian newspaper The Day that Oleg Sentsov has most likely been relocated somewhere along the Trans-Siberian railroad.

Shchur detailed receiving an anonymous phone call, saying only “Sentsov has moved.”

It is particularly likely that the activist is being held in a Siberian labor camp not unlike the Stalinist Soviet Union’s Gulags. Shchur speculates that Sentsov may be at a corrective labor camp in Russia’s far-eastern province of Yakutia. Aleksandr Kolchenko, Sentsov’s alleged accomplice, is currently located at Penal Colony #6 in Saint Petersburg.

Sentsov’s case bears a striking similarity to the state’s response to calls for the release of Pussy Riot, when Nadya Tolokonnikova’s whereabouts were unknown until she was located in a labor camp in Mordovia following international outcry including The Voice Project’s “WHERE’S NADYA?!” campaign which went viral in 2013.

Russian authorities use the relocation of prolific prisoners of conscience in an attempt to make the monitoring of them by media, activists, and lawyers more difficult, if not impossible. If Sentsov is indeed in Yakutia, that would place him six time zones and over 9,000 km (5,500 mi) from Crimea.

The Voice Project is calling on Russian authorities to disclose Oleg Sentsov’s location and provide access to human rights representatives, and we continue to advocate for his unconditional release. We’ll update this story as it develops.