The state of health of 52-year-old Dmytro Shtyblikov, originally from Akyar (Sevastopol), has deteriorated significantly due to living conditions in custody. This was reported by his daughter Tatyana to the Association of Relatives of Political Prisoners of the Kremlin.
“While there was a second investigation, the conditions of my father’s detention improved slightly. He was transferred from Omsk to the Rostov pre-trial detention center, where there was more or less normal food, a TV set and a refrigerator. Then they gave the first date in 5 years – the father met with his mother”,- Tetiana said.
We managed to find out about the health of the political prisoner because of the letters that he rarely sends: it is known that the state of health has worsened after a long and difficult period back to colony 6 in Omsk. He began to suffer from hypertension, problems with teeth and gums.
“My father’s eyesight has greatly fallen and for some reason his glasses are constantly “breaking”. He lacks vitamins, because the food in the colony is terrible, and there are no normal products in the prison store”,- the daughter of the Kremlin prisoner specified.
Shyblikov is in solitary confinement and cannot make phone calls to his relatives, and he is let out of the cell once a day, at an hour. The number of books a political prisoner can read per month is strictly limited.
“The father is deprived of all kinds of contacts and is kept in a complete information vacuum”,- Tetiana said.
Tetiana notes that, despite all this, her father does not lose hope and hopes that he will be exchanged.
“Our family hopes that the state has not forgotten about political prisoners. For years we have been hearing that there is no political will of the Russian Federation for the exchange – their authorities do not want to exchange Ukrainian civilians for their prisoners of war”,- she added.
We remind that on November 9, 2016, FSB officers detained Volodymyr Dudka, Dmytriy Shtyblikov, Oleksiy Bessarabov and Gleb Shabliy in Sevastopol on suspicion of preparing a sabotage in Crimea (article 30 and paragraph a of part 2 of article 281 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that these repressive actions are being carried out for an external audience with an attempt to discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the international community, as well as for an internal Russian audience to convince that Ukrainians are allegedly dangerous.
On May 18, 2017, Dmytriy Shtyblikov entered into a pre-trial agreement with the investigation, that is, he pleaded guilty. Not a single independent lawyer was allowed to see him. On November 16, 2017, the so-called Sevastopol City Court sentenced him to 5 years in a maximum security colony and to a fine of 200 thousand rubles.
On April 4, 2019, the so-called Sevastopol City Court sentenced the persons involved in the so-called case of Ukrainian saboteurs Volodymyr Dudka and Oleksiy Bessarabov to 14 years in prison and imposed a fine of 350 and 300 thousand rubles, respectively.