Verkhovna Rada First Deputy Speaker Iryna Gerashchenko, who represents Ukraine in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group, expects that the process on the release of Ukrainian political prisoners from Russian prisons, including Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov, will be unblocked this year.

"For several months I put aside Oleh Sentsov's book 'Buy a Book - It's Funny' and a collection by relatives, friends and colleagues about Oleh. However, at the end of last year, when I was flying to the United States, I read these two collections on the plane. I want to have Oleh's autograph as soon as possible," she wrote on her Facebook page on Tuesday.

At the same time, Gerashchenko expressed confidence that in 2018 Ukraine would be able to unblock the process on the release of Ukrainian political prisoners from Russian prisons.

"At least, President [Petro] Poroshenko and the authorities are making every effort for this purpose at all possible international negotiations, meetings and venues," she added.

The North Caucasus Military District Court in Rostov-on-Don ruled in August 2015 to find Ukrainian citizen Oleh Sentsov, who had been detained in Crimea in 2014, guilty of setting up a terrorist group in the peninsula and sentenced him to 20 years in a high-security penal colony. The Russian Supreme Court later upheld the verdict.

The Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly called Sentsov's case politically motivated.