Photo by Anton Naumlyuk

Russian human rights activist Pavel Chikov has said that illegally convicted Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov will not write any letter of pardon to ask Russian President Vladimir Putin to free him.

"The regime is designed to make people cave in to its demands. But Oleh will not write any petitions, it's obvious. Despite mediators and their hints of such a need," Chikov wrote on his Telegram channel, commenting on the information that Sentsov must personally write a pardon letter.

Read alsoKremlin may have decided to let Sentsov die as example to others - media

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As UNIAN reported earlier, the office under the Russian president's administration for ensuring citizens' constitutional rights informed Sentsov's mother, Liudmyla Sentsova, in response to her request to pardon her son that for the pardoning procedure to be launched, Sentsov in person must appeal to Putin with the corresponding request.

The Putin administration also noted that the final decision is to be taken by the Russian president.

UNIAN memo. Sentsov was arrested in Russian-occupied Crimea in spring 2014 and in August 2015 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison following an unfair trial where he faced "terrorism" charges stemming from his opposition to Russia's occupation of Crimea. He has been serving his term in a penal colony in the town of Labytnangi, Russia's Yamal. Sentsov began his hunger strike on May 14, 2018, in protest against the politically motivated jailing of dozens of Ukrainians in the Russian Federation.