By: Daniel McElroy
Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, imprisoned in Russia since 2015, has started a hunger strike that he plans to continue until all Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia are freed.
Sentsov, most famous in Ukraine for his 2012 film Gámer, was arrested after the Russian invasion of Crimea in May 2014. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges of plotting a terrorist attack. The case is widely known to have been largely fabricated by prosecutors who tortured the defendants and created a fake “terrorist organization”, and he has been transferred regularly among different hard labor camps and detention facilities throughout Siberia for the past several years.
On May 14, 2018, almost four years to the day after his initial arrest, Sentsov released the following statement:
“I, Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian citizen who was illegally sentenced by a Russian court and is currently serving a sentence in the penal colony of Labytnangi town, go on an indefinite hunger strike on May 14, 2018. The only condition for its termination is the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners who are jailed on the territory of the Russian Federation. Glory to Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims that more than 60 Ukrainian citizens are currently detained in Crimea (still occupied by Russia) and in Russia itself.
Nataliya Kaplan, Sentsov’s cousin, has confirmed that he does plan to continue refusing food indefinitely, and that he had been preparing himself mentally and physically for the strike for the past two months. “I know Oleg,” she said, “and I know he will not back down.”