You're reading: Ukraine claims compatriots Sentsov, Cherniy, have been tortured in Russia

The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine has said that Ukrainian citizens Oleh Sentsov and Oleksiy Cherniy have been tortured during their detention in a Russian prison.

“Facts of the violation of the human rights of the mentioned citizens of Ukraine arouse indignation. In particular, there is information that torture has been applied against Sentsov by the employees of the Russian law enforcement agencies during his detention in the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in May 2014. Besides, there is evidence that torture has been used against Cherniy as well,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maryana Betsa said at a briefing on Wednesday.

She stressed that testimony extracted from Cherniy by torture is being used to accuse Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko of terrorism, “which completely spoils impartiality of the investigation.”