A film director’s chair, on which it is written “Freedom,” and a plaque with the history of Oleh Sentsov’s abduction (a Russian court jailed him for 20 years on August 25 this year) – this is the object Ukrainian designers have created. The chief message is: Sentsov is a man of art and should make films rather than languish behind bars. The installation was put up next to the Foreign Ministry’s entrance though which foreign VIPs go through. “By this work, we tried to overcome conservatism in our mentality and in the minds of those around us,” Dmytro Alliluiev, one of the installation authors, commented. “We decided to support Oleh Sentsov. The inscription ‘Freedom’ is a symbol of free thinking and the Ukrainian director’s freedom.”
Other Ukrainian prisoners in the Russian Federation have not been forgotten either. According to the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine, Russia has illegally detained 10 Ukrainians. On October 26, the Chechen Republic’s Supreme Court in Grozny heard the case of the two of them – Mykola Karpiuk and Stanislav Klykh – who are accused of taking part in the 1990s Chechnya hostilities. The court ruled to continue holding Karpiuk and Klykh in custody for another four months. The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine said in a commentary: “In spite of the numerous requests of the Ukrainian side, Ukrainian consuls only managed to see Mykola Karpiuk and Stanislav Klykh for the first time after the court session on October 26 this year. The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine believes that a longtime refusal to allow Ukrainian consuls to visit their jailed compatriots is a deliberate attempt of the Russian Federation to renege on its international commitments. The Ukrainian side demands that all the instances of violating Karpiuk’s and Klykh’s rights be investigated, the guilty persons be brought to justice, criminal prosecution of them and other citizens of Ukraine, who fell hostage to the Russian Federation’s aggressive policy, be discontinued, and the detained be freed.”
The Foreign Ministry emphasizes that it is actively working to have the Ukrainian detainees freed. “Since the last year, there have been more than 200 official statements, meetings, and talks to the effect that the Russian Federation should release our detainees,” Ukraine’s Roving Ambassador Dmytro Kuleba says. “The Foreign Ministry helped pay for legal services in the interests of Mykola Karpiuk, Stanislav Klykh, and Serhii Lytvynov. Our citizens are being prosecuted for being Ukrainian. Their problem is high on the priority list of Germany, the UK, and the US. And any negotiations with Russia on the overall settlement of the situation must include the question of freeing our political prisoners in the RF. History knows a lot of instances when concerted efforts to exert pressure helped produce a result.”
