ROSTOV-ON-DON. July 5 (Interfax) - The letter written by Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who is serving a 20-year sentence in U.S. Fort Dix prison, to U.S. President Donald Trump was a despair gesture, his wife Victoria Yaroshenko told Interfax on Wednesday.
"Konstantin now feels even worse than before. He is morally broken, he is crestfallen now that his mother has died. His physical and psychological conditions are extremely poor. And Kostya does not get medical assistance in prison," she said.
"Previously, he was ready to fight for himself, he denied his guilt and refused to ask for pardon. But now he says 'I am not ready to fight and bear all this.' His letter to Trump was a despair gesture," Victoria Yaroshenko said.
Victoria Yaroshenko said prison doctors had refused to give Yaroshenko a sedative that he asked when he learned about his mother's death.
"They only offered to him psychotropic substances. Any other assistance is out of the question," she said.
Yaroshenko wrote a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump asking for return to his homeland. The letter to the U.S. president was forwarded to the White House through the Russian embassy in Washington on July 4.
Pilot Yaroshenko was arrested in Liberia on May 28, 2010, on the counts of preparing to transport a large batch of cocaine and deported to the United States. A U.S. court sentenced the Russian citizen to 20 years in prison on September 7, 2011.