Russia sentences Crimean political prisoner to additional 4.5 years in prison.

A Russian court sentenced a Ukrainian political prisoner from Crimea, Oleh Prykhodko, to four and half years in prison in addition to the five-year sentence he is already serving, Suspilne Crimea reported on Nov.

10, citing his daughter, Nataliia Shvetsova. Following a court session on Nov.

8, Prykhodko was convicted of allegedly "justifying terrorism" and "public calls for aggressive war." Prykhodko was originally sentenced to five years in a high-security penal colony by a Russian court in Rostov-on-Don in March 2021.

Russian authorities claimed he possessed explosives and "Ukrainian nationalist symbols" and accused Prykhodko of planning terrorist attacks in the Crimean town of Saky and against the Russian consulate in Lviv.

She wanted to visit her sick father in occupied Crimea. Russia wants to imprison her for 20 years Russia's top propagandist, Olga Skabeeva, interrupted her talk show on May 16 to share "breaking news" with the Russian people.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) uncovered a spy, Skabeeva said, who had been feeding information about Russian military infrastructure and equipment to Ukrainia...

According to Shvetsova, Prykhodko is denied medical care and contact with family members and is often put into solitary confinement. She said that her 65-year-old father believes "he will not get out of prison alive." Human rights groups noted that the Crimean native began to suffer from severe loss of hearing and vision while in prison and has chronic health problems with digestion.

Ukraine's former Ombudsman, Liudmyla Denisova, said last year the charges against Prykhodko were fabricated and politically motivated. Russia occupied Crimea in 2014 after the EuroMaidan Revolution ousted the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. Since then, the occupation authorities have been carrying out repressions against pro-Ukrainian activists and Crimean Tatars, who are regularly indicted with trumped-up charges and sentenced to lengthy prison terms in kangaroo courts.

In the shadow of war, Kremlin continues terrorizing Crimean Tatars

They usually come at four or five in the morning. Men in uniform and with guns pull up in large vehicles. The dogs start barking.

The family wakes up, knowing exactly what is about to happen. The house is searched. Phones and computers are taken away.

And so is the

News Editor

Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He also volunteers as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukrainer.

Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.