Natalia Kaplan, a cousin of Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, has denied the information about his brother’s resuscitation.
“I conveyed information on Oleh’s state of health two weeks ago, as this is the latest news. If a number of journalists preferred not to talk about the movie, but to reprint about his close decease in a wrapper of news, then ask them questions,” she wrote on her Facebook page on October 16 evening.
According to her, Sentsov is experiencing difficulties coming out of the hunger strike.
As reported, at a briefing in Kyiv on October 16, Kaplan stated that her brother was in a serious condition, who ended a multi-day hunger strike.
“He has now ended his hunger strike. He did so to avoid force-feeding. […] He ended [his hunger strike] with very impaired health, all of his internal organs were affected quite seriously,” Kaplan said at a briefing in Kyiv on October 16.
“Ending a hunger strike is quite a serious procedure, no one can say now whether Oleg will survive,” she said.
His latest letters are very pessimistic, his cousin said. “He has made a will, he asks us not to leave his children, he does not believe he will be released. […] Maybe he still believes in it, but he no longer expects it. […] He is preparing to ensure that his work and children live on without him,” Kaplan said.
She said she hopes he is released.
On October 6, he announced that he was ending his hunger strike over the threat of being force-fed.
In August 2015, the North Caucasus District Military Court sentenced Sentsov, arrested in Crimea in 2014, to 20 years in a high-security penitentiary for forming a terrorist group in Crimea.
Sentsov went on hunger strike on May 14, 2018, and demanded that all Ukrainians incarcerated in Russia be released.
