Good morning. Today is Oleh Sentsov's 40th birthday. Here is a piece by RFE/RL's Claire Bigg on what his supporters are doing to mark the occasion:
Crimean Filmmaker Sentsov Turns 40 In Russian Prison
Supporters in Ukraine and beyond are marking Oleh Sentsov’s 40th birthday on July 13 -- the third consecutive birthday the Crimean film director is spending behind bars in Russia, which convicted him of conspiring to commit terrorism on the annexed peninsula.
Sentsov, who denies guilt and says he was unfairly prosecuted by the "occupiers" of Crimea, is serving a 20-year sentence at a high-security Russian prison following a trial described by Amnesty International as "fatally flawed."
Ukraine will honor Sentsov with a rally on Kyiv's iconic Independence Square, scene of the Euromaidan protests that drove a Moscow-allied president from power and preceded Crimea’s seizure by Russia in March 2014.
The Kyiv-based Solidarity Committee, one of the event's organizers, said the rally is intended as a show of support for Sentsov, his co-defendant Oleksandr Kolchenko -- who received a 10-year sentence -- and other Crimeans it considers political prisoners.
"Our goal is to show them that we are not indifferent to their fate, we want to show that Ukraine doesn’t forget its people," said Polina Brodik of the Solidarity Committee. "It’s also a reminder to Russia’s law-enforcement organs that these people are not forgotten and that we will fight for their release."
Sentsov and Kolchenko were convicted on charges that include burning down the office of a pro-Kremlin political party and plotting to blow up a statue of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin in Simferopol, the regional capital. Both have consistently denied the accusations.
"Texts written by Sentsov will be read, we will read his prose, his closing statement, and several other texts pertaining to him and his case," Brodik told RFE/RL. "We will then release balloons from cages, as a symbol of our wish to see him free."
Hennadiy Afanasyev, a photographer from Crimea who was jailed on similar charges, is scheduled to address the crowd on Independence Square on July 13 along with Sentsov’s cousin and other speakers.
Afanasyev was released in June in a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine. His testimony had been used to convict Sentsov and Kolchenko, but he quickly recanted it in the courtroom, saying it was obtained under torture. Sentsov, too, has said he was tortured by his Russian captors.
The trial of Sentsov and Kolchenko drew international condemnation, with politicians, officials, and cultural luminaries calling for their release. The case is widely seen as an attempt to crush dissent in Crimea, which Russia took over after sending in troops and staging a referendum dismissed as illegitimate by 100 U.N. members.
Some of Europe’s most prominent film directors, including Ken Loach, Wim Wenders, and Mike Leigh, have signed an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin demanding that Sentsov be freed and his torture allegations be investigated.
Top Russian directors such as Aleksandr Sokurov and Andrei Zvyagintsev have also joined the appeals.
Best known for his 2011 film Gamer, Sentsov says his jailing is punishment for his involvement in the Euromaidan movement that led to the ouster of Russia-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych and for his public opposition to Russia's takeover of his native peninsula.
We are now closing the live blog for today. Until we resume again tomorrow morning, you can keep up with all our other Ukraine coverage here.
Here's another Trudeau video from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service:
Canadian PM Trudeau Visits Troops In Ukraine
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Canadian troops on July 12 near Lviv, where they are helping to train their Ukrainian counterparts.
Here's a new video feature from Christopher Miller, reporting for RFE/RL in Ukraine:
Ukrainians 'Inhabit' Lenin's Shadow On Site Of Toppled Statue
KYIV -- Andriy Turchenko was a boy of seven or eight when his father brought him to the statue of Vladimir Lenin on Kyiv's Taras Shevchenko Boulevard in the 1990s, a few years after the Soviet collapse, to teach him about the Bolshevik leader's legacy.
"He was feeling nostalgic," Turchenko recalls.
This week, Turchenko returned with his own son, 5-year-old Oleksandr, for an updated history lesson -- and a selfie on the spot where Lenin long stood. The statue is gone, pulled down by protesters during Ukraine's Euromaidan revolution in 2013, and the plinth it occupied for 67 years is empty.
But thanks to a temporary art installation that put a staircase in place to allow people to ascend to the pedestal, Ukrainians are getting a chance to stand in Lenin's shoes, so to speak.
"I told Sasha," Turchenko says, using a diminutive of his son's name, "Lenin's absence means Ukraine is free."
They snapped a photo of themselves to celebrate that freedom.
Titled Inhabiting Shadows, the exhibit by Mexican artist Cynthia Gutierrez "intends to provoke a discussion and reflection about imposed memory, system failure, emptiness, identity, and occupying space," according to the artist's description.
Organized by the Izolyatsia Center for Cultural Initiatives, an art collective that relocated from war-torn Donetsk to Kyiv after fighting broke out in 2014, Inhabiting Shadows will remain in place through the end of the week. It is part of a larger exhibition called Social Contract, which aims to spur discussion about public symbols. It is on display at the Izolyatsia Center in Kyiv through August 24.
Read the entire article here
A tweet from the man himself on his highly publicized (and generally well received) visit to Ukraine:
An interview with the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine: