Public rally in support of Oleg Sentsov, Kyiv. Photo: NurPhoto / SIPA USA / PA Images. All rights reserved.On 13 July, Oleh Sentsov turned 42. He is currently on hunger strike in a prison colony in the Russian town of Labytnangi, beyond the Arctic Circle. I heard about this place only after Sentsov was imprisoned there. He is being kept alive on an IV of glucose and amino-acids, which is an especially dangerous method that could result in his death at any moment. If Sentsov survives, it is almost certain he will be an invalid for the rest of his life.
I’m roughly the same age as Sentsov, and I can’t get it out of my mind that if it had been my fate to be born in Crimea and not Kyiv, then its more than likely I would have ended up like him or at least in a very similar place. After all, Russia’s occupation regime doesn’t give a damn about Oleh Sentsov or Olexander Kolchenko or any of the other dozens of Ukrainian political prisoners. These prisoners are being punished in order to show that Putin’s regime will respond with repression to any attempt to oppose the occupation of Crimea. The FSB will apply excessive and unjustifiably brutal violence against anyone who lifts their head. True, intimidation can’t be effective indefinitely and opposition protests in Russia (including those against the pension reform) demonstrate that. However, opposition to the annexation of Crimea is the one thing the FSB does not tolerate. In contrast to Nadia Savchenko, to release Sentsov means to recognise at least the moral right of Crimeans to oppose the occupying power. And that already puts in doubt Russia’s entire imperialist expansionist strategy and the legitimacy of Putin’s regime as a whole.
To release Sentsov means to recognise at least the moral right of Crimeans to oppose the occupying power. And that already puts in doubt Russia’s entire imperialist expansionist strategy and the legitimacy of Putin’s regime as a whole
