On Thursday, March 11, Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Yevhen Tsymbaliuk during a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council recalled the illegal sentence to the pro-Ukrainian activist Oleh Prykhodko. The representative of Ukraine called on the international community to increase pressure on the Russian Federation so that it ceases to violate human rights in the occupied Crimea.
“On March 3, Ukrainian citizen Oleh Prykhodko was illegally sentenced by the Russian occupants to five years in prison on trumped-up charges of “preparing a terrorist attack, manufacturing and illegal storage of explosives.” Mr. Prykhodko is a pro-Ukrainian Crimean activist. Back in 2014, after the beginning of the occupation Crimea, he hung a Ukrainian flag in the courtyard of his private house in Crimea to express his disagreement with the occupation”,- the message said.
The representative of Ukraine called on the international community to condemn the illegal actions of the Russian Federation and to increase pressure on Russia to force it to comply with the norms of international humanitarian law in the occupied Crimea.
“We again call on the Russian Federation to stop the illegal occupation of Crimea, the militarization of the Black and Azov Seas and end aggression against Ukraine, including by withdrawing its armed formations, mercenaries and their equipment from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine”,- he added.