Rally in support of Oleg Sentsov and other Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia. Berlin, Potsdamer Platz, June 2018. Photo from the editorial archive.Lyudmila Sentsova and Larisa Kolchenko hug one another silently, both with tears in their eyes. This is their first meeting in the four years since their sons, Oleg and Alexander, were arrested in 2014. Lyudmila is askin g Larisa to tell her son to call off the hunger strike he began on 14 May, while her own son is three weeks into a hunger strike himself. Then the mothers call on Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko to do all that he can to have Alexander and Oleg released from Russian prison.
Film director Oleg Sentsov and anti-fascist activist Alexander Kolchenko were arrested in May 2014 in Russian-annexed Crimea, and were charged with planning a terrorist act. In August 2015, a court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Sentsov to 20 years in prison, 10 for Kolchenko. On hearing their sentences, they sang the Ukrainian national anthem in the courtroom.
Larisa Kolchenko was in the courtroom that day in Rostov. The four years since have turned her into another woman. Before, she was a quiet person who avoided contact with the press, but observed the court proceedings silently and attentively, trying to work out what she could do and how she could help her son. Now she openly campaigns for the release of not just her Sasha, but other political prisoners as well.
