Macron to raise Sentsov issue with Putin on Friday

18:42, 09.08.2018 1 min read

President Emmanuel Macron will speak with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Friday about jailed Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov, who has been on hunger strike since May and is gravely ill, Reuters said referring to its source in Elysee office on Thursday.

"Sentsov, imprisoned on what he says are political charges, began his hunger strike ahead of the World Cup to highlight Russia's human rights record," the message reads.

As reported, in August 2015, the North Caucasus District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Sentsov, who had been detained in Crimea in 2014, to 20 years in a strict-security penal colony for an attempt to set up a terrorist group on the peninsula.

Sentsov declared a hunger strike on May 14, 2018 to demand that all Ukrainians held in Russia "for political reasons" be freed.