YEKATERINBURG. Aug 13 (Interfax) - The Russian Federal Penitentiary Service's (FSIN) branch for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District has denied information that convict Oleh Sentsov had left the penal colony, the branch's press service told Interfax on Sunday.
"Information that convict Sentsov has allegedly left the penal colony is not true," the press service said.
Sentsov remains in the colony and continues his hunger strike, the press service said.
Russian journalist Viktoriya Ivleva said earlier that a plane, on board of which Sentsov may have been, had departed from the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District's administrative center, Salekhard, late Saturday night.
As reported, in August 2015, the North Caucasus District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don ruled to sentence Sentsov, who had been detained in Crimea in 2014, to 20 years in a maximum-security penal colony on terrorism charges.
Sentsov has been on a hunger strike since May 14, 2018, demanding that all Ukrainian citizens held in Russia "for political reasons" be released.
His relatives said that his health has seriously deteriorated.