KYIV. Aug 9 (Interfax) - Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Liudmyla Denisova said she asked her Russian counterpart, Tatyana Moskalkova, to photograph and videotape a conversation between the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District human rights commissioner and Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, who is being held at the Bely Medved (Polar Bear) penitentiary, so that the latter's health status can be evaluated.
"Tatyana Moskalkova just called me back and again talked about Oleh's stable condition and said he himself had refused to be transferred to the Labytnangi city hospital," Denisova wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
"In any event, I insisted on making sure that Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District Human Rights Commissioner Anatoly Sak visit Oleh, take a picture of him, and videotape a conversation with him so that all of us can be confident that his condition is indeed stable," Denisova wrote.
Moskalkova will soon arrange this visit, she wrote.
In a telephone conversation between Denisova and Moskalkova earlier in the day, the Ukrainian ombudsman said Sentsov's situation required immediate action due to the fact that his health had severely deteriorated in the course of his lengthy hunger strike. She said Sentsov had refused to be placed in the Labytnangi hospital, pointing out that this hospital had no specialists who could help him end his fast. "Such specialists are present at Professor Nikolayev's Institute in Moscow and the Kyiv Gerontology Research Institute," she said.
Therefore, Denisova asked Moskalkova to arrange for Sentsov's transfer to a Moscow clinic or hospital which has specialists in endogenous nutrition.
In August 2015, the North Caucasus District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Sentsov, who had been detained in Crimea in 2014, to 20 years in a strict-security penal colony for an attempt to set up a terrorist group on the peninsula.
Sentsov declared a hunger strike on May 14, 2018 to demand that all Ukrainians held in Russia "for political reasons" be freed.