About 1,000 people have rallied at Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv in support of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, who is serving a 20-year prison term in Russia on trumped up "terrorism" charges, as well as other Ukrainian political prisoners held in Russia.
Read alsoGlobal Sentsov campaign planned ahead of Russia World Cup – media
Activists are holding posters saying: "Free Sentsov" and "Free Kremlin's hostages."
They also keep in hands drawings, showing Sentsov behind bars.
As UNIAN reported earlier, activists announced a global campaign to demand the release of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, who opposed Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea, and went on hunger strike in a Russian prison.
Russia's security forces detained Sentsov together with Oleksandr Kolchenko in the occupied Crimea in May 2014 on charges of organizing terrorist attacks on the peninsula.
In August 2015, the North Caucasus District Military Court in Russia's Rostov-on-Don sentenced Sentsov to 20 years in a high-security penal colony. Kolchenko was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Both men pleaded not guilty.
Kolchenko is serving his sentence in Correctional Colony No. 6 (Kopeysk, Russia's Chelyabinsk region).
Sentsov declared hunger strike on May 14 indefinitely.
He went on hunger strike against the actions of the Kremlin, demanding the release of all the Ukrainian political prisoners held in Russia.
