Here's a Sentsov update from our news desk:
The Russian Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov, who was jailed in August for 20 years on terrorism charges, which he and international rights groups call politically motivated.
According to Russia’s state-owned TASS agency, the court on November 24 rejected an appeal brought by lawyers of Sentsov and co-defendant Oleksandr Kolchenko, an activist sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Sentsov, a native of Crimea who opposed Russia's March 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula, was arrested in May of that year on suspicion of planning the fire-bombings of pro-Russian organizations on the Black Sea peninsula.
A Russian court convicted him on multiple terrorism charges on August 25 and sentenced him to 20 years in a maximum-security prison.
Sentsov, 39, has denied all charges against him, saying that a "trial by occupiers cannot be fair by definition."
His lawyer, Dmitry Dinze, called the conviction of Sentsov by the North Caucasus District Military Court, located in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, "a hallmark of injustice and arbitrariness," TASS reported on November 24.
Vox Pop: Crimeans React To Power Cut
People in Crimea have been voicing anger after the peninsula's electricity supplies from Ukraine were cut off. Crimea was annexed by Russia last year but continued to receive electricity supplies from Ukraine until explosions on November 20-21 brought down four electricity transmission towers. (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service)
