You're reading: RFE/RL: US calls on Russia to release dozens of political prisoners

RFE/RL: US calls on Russia to release dozens of political prisoners

Published June 18, 2018 at 5:54 pm

People hold placards with an appeal to boycott the Russia World Cup 2018 football tournament in front of the Russian Embassy in Kiev on June 14, 2018, during a rally to demand the release Oleg Sentsov and other Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia.Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence in Russia, will have spent a month on hunger strike in jail demanding that Russia release his fellow Ukrainians who he says are being held as political prisoners. To draw Western attention to Moscow's role in the four-year conflict in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian artist Andriy Yermolenko made a series of graphic drawings that have become popular on Facebook. / AFP PHOTO / Genya SAVILOV

Photo by AFP

The United States has called on Russia to release dozens of people it says have been identified by rights groups as political prisoners.

The June 18 statement by the State Department said more than 150 people were being held in all, including Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov and human rights activist Oyub Titiyev.