“The Kremlin has rejected the plea from Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov’s mother that Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘pardon’ her son. It claims that the request must come from Sentsov, although this was not the case when Putin issued decrees ‘pardoning’ three other Ukrainian political prisoners. It also claims, equally falsely, that Sentsov is a Russian citizen.
“The letter from the relevant department within the President’s Administration is dated August 3, but has only now been published by Hromadske. …
“Russia has, since soon after the arrest of Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko and two other opponents of annexation, been claiming that Sentsov and Kolchenko ‘automatically became Russian citizens’, because they did not use the month provided soon after annexation at just four offices for the whole of Crimea to come in person to formally reject any but Ukrainian citizenship.
“The hypocrisy is overwhelming. Russia has deported a very large number of Ukrainians from their home in Crimea, which it is illegally occupying. In these cases, there has been no suggestion of them ‘automatically’ taking on Russian citizenship; quite the contrary, the lack of Russian citizenship is being used as a pretext to drive them from their homes. In the case of Sentsov and Kolchenko, Russia is using the myth about their Russian citizenship as an excuse to deny the men their rights under Ukrainian and international law. …”
– Halya Coynash of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, in her article “Kremlin uses blatant lies as excuse to not free Oleh Sentsov,” published on August 15.