Larysa Kolchenko, the mother of Ukrainian political prisoner Oleksandr Kolchenko serving his term in Colony No. 6 in Kopeisk (Chelyabinsk region), has received permission to visit her son and arrived in Chelyabinsk, regional public monitoring committee said on Monday, July 30.

"Relatives were allowed to stay together for three days. For a more comfortable stay, they were given a room with all amenities in a hotel of a correctional institution," the press service said.

"Kolchenko's mother wants only one thing: for her son to be set free. Perhaps it could be an exchange for Russian prisoners in Ukrainian prisons," committee representatives said, adding that Kolchenko has gained weight since his hunger strike.

A Russian military court in Rostov-on-Don in August 2015 sentenced Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, detained in Crimea in 2014, to 20 years in a strict-security colony. In Russia, he was accused of creating a terrorist community on the territory of Crimea. In the same case, Kolchenko was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

On May 14, 2018, Sentsov went on a hunger strike with a demand to release all Ukrainians illegally detained in the Russian Federation. From May 31 to June 7, .Kolchenko was on hunger strike demanding Sentsov's release.