The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine has strongly condemned the decision of the Russian Supreme Court to uphold the verdicts against Ukrainian citizens Oleh Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko, who were sentenced to 20 and 10 years in a maximum-security prison respectively.
“The politically motivated cases against Oleh Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko as well as the illegal detention of other Ukrainian citizens in Russia prove the lack of justice in the Russian Federation. These cases are yet more symbols of the cynicism of Russia’s current policy,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry called for Sentsov and Kolchenko to be released immediately along with other Ukrainian political prisoners detained by Russia on trumped-up charges.
“We call on the international community and human rights institutions to exert all the legal and political measures possible to release and return them back to Ukraine our citizens who are political hostages in Russia,” the ministry said.
