The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry demands the release of activist Volodymyr Balukh illegally sentenced to five years imprisonment in the occupied Crimea, Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Mariana Betsa has said.
"Five years for patriotism The invader is trying to exterminate all the patriots of Ukraine. We demand the release of Balukh," she wrote on her Twitter account on January15.
Crimea's Rozdolne District Court sentenced Balukh to three years and seven months of imprisonment in a low-security penal colony and to a fine of 10,000 Russian rubles. Balukh's defense team said the case was fabricated, and his verdict would be appealed in courts of higher instances.
