European Parliament To Award Sakharov Prize To Ukrainian Director Sentsov
By RFE/RL
The European Parliament is scheduled to award imprisoned Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov with its 2018 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
The ceremony, set for December 12, aims to honor Sentsov, who has been imprisoned in Russia since opposing Moscow's takeover of his native Crimea in 2014.
European officials have called on Russian authorities to release Sentsov, saying the filmmaker continues to be in poor health as he recovers from 145-day hunger strike in prison.
A Crimean native who opposed Russia's 2014 takeover of the Ukrainian peninsula, Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of terrorism.
He is currently imprisoned in a Far Northern Russian region.
Human rights groups and Western governments criticized the trial as politically motivated.
The prize, named in honor of the Soviet physicist and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov, was established by the European Parliament in 1988 to honor individuals and organizations who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Sakharov was a founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a Soviet-era rights group, along with Lyudmila Alexeyeva, who died on December 8.
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for December 11, 2018. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Thanks for reading and take care.
Ukrainian Court Reinstates Nasirov After He Was Charged With Embezzlement
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
KYIV -- A court in Kyiv has reinstated Roman Nasirov to the position of head of the State Fiscal Service after he was fired in January following his arrest on suspicion of embezzlement.
Nasirov’s lawyer, Lyubomyr Drozdovskyy, told the Hromadske television channel that the Regional Administrative Court in the Ukrainian capital ruled on December 11 to immediately reinstate Nasirov to the post with financial compensation for the days he was absent from work.
There was no official statement by the court or Ukrainian officials regarding the information, but Kyiv police sources confirmed to RFE/RL that Nasirov was reinstated.
Nasirov is being investigated on suspicion of defrauding the state of 2 billion hryvnyas ($70 million).
He is one of the highest officials who had been expected to face prosecution in Ukraine, whose pro-Western government is under pressure from the United States, the European Union, and donor organizations to tackle endemic corruption.
Nasirov was arrested after the National Anticorruption Bureau accused him of signing off on grace periods for a number of taxpayers, including companies linked to a former lawmaker who fled the country in 2016 while facing a corruption investigation.
Shortly after his arrest in March 2017, he was released on bail but ordered to wear an electronic bracelet and barred from leaving Kyiv without authorities' permission.
Western officials say corruption hurts Ukraine's chances of throwing off the influence of Russia, which seized the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and backs separatists whose war with Kyiv has killed more than 10,300 people in eastern Ukraine.
With reporting by Hromadske
Former Russian Navy Officer Sentenced To 14 Years On Charge Of Spying For Ukraine
Retired Russian navy officer Leonid Parkhomenko has been sentenced to 14 years in prison after a military tribunal in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don found him guilty of passing classified documents to Ukrainian intelligence.
The North Caucasus Regional Military Court on December 11 also stripped Parkhomenko of his military rank.
Parkhomenko was detained in 2016 in the port of Sevastopol on Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula that was annexed by Russia in 2014.
He used to serve as an officer in Russia's naval fleet based in Sevastopol.
Investigators say Parkhomenko collected classified information about Russia's Black Sea Fleet and handed it to Ukraine in return for money between 2003-05.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) said Parkhomenko was receiving orders from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.
After annexing Crimea in March 2014, Russia has provided military, political, and economic support to separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The conflict in the eastern part of Ukraine has claimed more than 10,300 lives since April 2014.
In November, the tension in the region escalated when Russia seized three Ukrainian Navy ships and arrested 24 sailors in the Kerch Strait that links the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov.