Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin urges the international community to put pressure on the Russian Federation to release Ukrainian political prisoner Pavlo Hryb, who was illegally sentenced to six years in prison on Friday, March 22.
“Mercy, humanity, dignity – these concepts are not known to the invader state, the aggressor state," Klimkin wrote on Twitter.
"Russian pseudo-judiciary sentenced the seriously ill Pavlo Hryb to six years in prison. I urge the civilized world to put pressure on the Russian Federation to ensure his speedy release,” said Klimkin.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the North Caucasian district military court has sentenced Ukrainian political prisoner Pavlo Hryb to six years in a penal colony for "promoting terrorism."
Pavlo Hryb was being tried in Russia on trumped-up "terrorist" charges as investigators claimed he instructed an accomplice to set off an explosive device at a Russian schoolyard. He was just 19 when he was abducted by the FSB from Belarus on August 24, 2017, after going there to meet who he thought was a young woman he had chatted with online, and fallen in love with.
Hryb is diagnosed with portal hypertension, which requires daily intake of necessary medications and a special diet, the lack of which could become fatal. Russian authorities do not allow Ukrainian doctors to examine the political prisoner.