The Ukrainian ombudsman asks to allow an independent medical commission to see Sentsov, who is starving in a Russian colony.

The Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for Human Rights Lyudmila Denisova appealed to the Russian Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova and the head of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights under the President of the Russian Federation Mikhail Fedotov with a request to assist in organizing an examination of director Oleg Sentsov, who has been on hunger strike in a Russian colony for the 121st day , an independent medical commission.

“I received terrible news again. Oleg Sentsov’s health has worsened. Hypoxia has been added to the long list of serious diagnoses. Oleg’s brain and heart do not have enough oxygen. This makes his head foggy, his whole body goes numb,” Denisova wrote on her Facebook page on Tuesday, September 11.

“I want to see a medical certificate about Oleg Sentsov’s health from an independent medical commission. I need to make sure that he gets the help he needs,” she noted.

The day before, the cousin of the director, who continues his hunger strike in the Polar Bear maximum security colony in Labytnangi, Natalya Kaplan, publisheda letter from her brother on her Facebook . In it, he reported a “stable bad” condition and complained that hypoxia had been added “to all the old special effects.”

“There is fog in the head, everything is spinning, the body, head and limbs are going numb,” the director, sentenced in Russia to 20 years in prison, told his family. According to his sister, he also wrote a will for his work in case of death. Sentsov reports that he “will try to hold on, although now he lives simply by inertia” - “the circulatory system cannot cope with feeding the body oxygen at all.”

“I don’t believe a single word of the Russian Federation. They only make loud statements that the health condition of the Ukrainian political prisoner on the 121st day of the hunger strike has not worsened. But I do not have any official supporting document. Oleg Sentsov is at his limit. Otherwise, he would not have written a will on his creativity. But indestructible, he stubbornly fights for the fate of all political prisoners,” Denisova noted in her post.

The Ukrainian Ombudsman has repeatedly appealed to the Russian authorities with a request to provide qualified medical assistance to Oleg Sentsov. So, in early August, the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada asked the head of the Russian Presidential Administration, Anton Vaino, to report to the head of state on the director’s condition and transport Sentsov from the colony to a special medical facility in a safe way - for example, by air ambulance.

Before this, she asked Tatyana Moskalkova to send a photograph of Oleg Sentsov, confirming that he was alive, not bedridden and could walk independently. Denisova also tried to get into the colony with the convicted person, but she was not allowed there. On August 9, FSIN employees, with Sentsov’s consent, photographed him in his cell and sent the pictures to Moskalkova. In the photo, the director, dressed in a black prison uniform, stands next to the bed by the window in a double ward. The colony reported that Sentsov was in satisfactory condition - “active, goes to watch TV, reads books, writes something from time to time.”

On Tuesday TASS, the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug again stated that the condition of the Ukrainian director is satisfactory. “Convict Oleg Sentsov receives daily maintenance therapy, prescribed treatment and takes a nutritional mixture,” the department reported.

As the FSIN assured, the convict does not refuse maintenance therapy and medical care. Sentsov is “under constant dynamic supervision of medical workers and in case of deterioration of his health will be immediately sent to a medical institution of the state healthcare system,” the press service added.

Sentsov, sentenced in Russia to 20 years in prison on charges of terrorism, has been on hunger strike in a colony since May 14. He demands the release of all 64 Ukrainian political prisoners from Russian prisons.

Last Sunday, the director’s lawyer, Dmitry Dinze, said that the prisoner’s condition was deteriorating. According to the lawyer, “changes began to occur in the body: the cardiovascular system, kidneys, and liver were affected.” According to the lawyer, a crisis will soon come. However, it was noted that Sentsov does not intend to appeal to the President of the Russian Federation for a pardon.

At the same time, Anatoly Sak, the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, who visited Sentsov a week ago, reported that “for a person who has been on a hunger strike for 115 days, he looks quite healthy.” According to him, there were no complaints from the convict about the conditions of serving the sentence or the order of medical and sanitary care.

On September 11, Sak told Interfax that he had no information about Sentsov’s deteriorating health. “What he wrote to his sister about the will is his personal matter. No one has the right to interfere with this. His state of health is unchanged, stable,” the ombudsman said.

On August 25, 2015, the North Caucasus District Military Court sentenced Oleg Sentsov to 20 years in a maximum security colony. According to the investigation and the court, he created a terrorist group operating in Crimea. In the spring of 2014, its participants committed two terrorist attacks in Simferopol: they set fire to the offices of the public organization “Russian Community of Crimea” and the regional branch of “United Russia”. Activist Alexander Kolchenko was convicted in the same case and given 10 years in prison.

The international community has repeatedly appealed to the Russian authorities and personally to Vladimir Putin demanding the release of Sentsov. Foreign politicians and cultural figures publicly spoke out in support of the starving director.