Occupiers are keeping journalist Vladyslav Yesypenko in a colony in Kerch
Radio Liberty journalist and Kremlin's political prisoner Vladyslav Yesypenko, who has been sentenced to five years in prison in occupied Crimea, was taken to a prison in Kerch, the Crimean Human Rights Group reports.
He is in the "penal colony №2 of the FPS Administration in the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol" in Kerch.
According to his wife Kateryna Yesypenko, Vladyslav has already passed "the quarantine measures."
Political prisoner Volodymyr Balukh had been held in the same general regime colony.
As IMI reported, on August 18, the russia-controlled Supreme Court of Crimea reduced Vladyslav Yesypenko's sentence from six to five years in a general regime colony. The journalist's defense is going to contest this ruling in cassation and request parole for Yesypenko in half a year. Yesypenko will also have to pay a fine of 110,000 russian rubles.
On February 16, the russian-controlled Simferopol District Court sentenced Krym.Realii freelancer Vladyslav Yesypenko to six years in penal colony for alleged illegal storage and transportation of an explosive device.
Speaking in court on February 15, Yesypenko said the case was politically motivated.
On March 10, 2021, russian FSB officers detained "Radio Svoboda" freelancer journalist Vladyslav Yesypenko in the occupied Crimea. Yesypenko took part in a demonstration dedicated to Taras Shevchenko's birth anniversary, which took place in Simferopol on March 9. Vladyslav Yesypenko was charged with gathering information "in the interests of Ukraine's special services," including the Foreign Intelligence Service, the russian FSB's Public Relations Center reported. According to the FSB, Yesypenko "had been performing photo and video recording of the area, welfare facilities, and places of mass gatherings of people in the Crimea."
Vladyslav Yesypenko has stated that FSB investigators had tortured him in order to extract a confession from him.
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