The United States says it is concerned about an unjust decision by a Russian court on Ukrainian citizen Pavlo Hryb's six-year imprisonment.
"We are deeply concerned about today's Russian court decision unjustly sentencing Pavlo Hryb to six years in a penal colony. We are also concerned about Hryb's precarious health situation," the U.S. Embassy twitted on March 22 after the verdict was announced.
"We call on Russia to release all political prisoners immediately, to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and the rights of its citizens, and to cease its baseless political persecutions of Ukrainians," the Embassy said.
Read alsoUkrainian political prisoner Pavlo Hryb sentenced to six years in Russian prison
As UNIAN reported, Russia's North-Caucasian District Military Court on March 22 sentenced Pavlo Hryb to six years in a penal colony for allegedly "promoting terrorism." After the sentence was announced, Hryb said he would go on hunger strike. He demanded that doctors and Ukrainian human rights commissioner Liudmyla Denisova be allowed to visit him.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin called on the international community to exert pressure on the Russian Federation to release Hryb.
Pavlo Hryb was tried in Russia on trumped-up "terrorist" charges as investigators claim 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.