Ambulance called to Crimean court for hunger-striking Ukrainian defendant:
By the Crimean Desk of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
An ambulance has been called to a court in Russian-controlled Crimea after defendant Volodymyr Balukh, an imprisoned pro-Kyiv activist who has been on hunger strike for almost three months, felt unwell.
The Rozdolne district court judge adjourned Balukh's trial, which started in mid-May.
Balukh, who was convicted on a weapons-and-explosives-possession charge in August 2017, is now being tried for allegedly attacking a warden in a local detention center. He denies it.
Balukh was sentenced on the possession charge to three years and seven months in a penal facility, where convicts live close to a factory, farm, or other enterprise where they work as part of the punishment.
That sentence had been annulled by an appeals court and returned for additional investigation, but Balukh's retrial ended with the same verdict and sentence in January. Balukh contends the case against him was politically motivated.
The new case against Balukh was launched in March after the warden filed a lawsuit against him claiming that Balukh attacked him. Balukh started a hunger strike on March 19, protesting the new case against him.
Balukh was arrested in December 2016, after the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said explosives and 90 bullets were found in the attic of his home.
The search was conducted shortly after Balukh planted a Ukrainian flag in his yard and affixed a sign to his house that read Heavenly Hundred Street 18.
"Heavenly Hundred" is a term Ukrainians use for the dozens of people killed when security forces fired on protesters in Kyiv in February 2014, shortly before Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych was driven from power.
After Yanukovych's ouster, Russia seized Crimea by sending in troops and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by Ukraine, the United States, and about 100 other countries.
The Russian takeover badly damaged Moscow's relations with Kyiv and the West and resulted in the imposition of sanctions by the European Union, the United States, and several other countries.
Rights groups say Crimea residents who opposed Russia's takeover have faced discrimination and abuse at the hands of the Moscow-imposed authorities.
In 2017, the European Parliament called on Moscow to free more than 30 Ukrainian citizens who were in prison or under other conditions of restricted freedom in Russia, Crimea, and parts of eastern Ukraine that are controlled by Russia-backed separatists.
Here's another item from our news desk:
Ukrainian Ombudswoman Not Allowed To Meet Sentsov In Russian Custody
Ukrainian ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova says she was prevented from meeting with jailed filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, who is on hunger strike in prison in far northern Russia following a terrorism conviction he says was fabricated.
In a video statement on Facebook, Denisova said she arrived at the penal colony in the Yamalo-Nenets region on June 15, but that the warden and the regional prison service chief did not allow her to meet with Sentsov.
She said they gave no explanation of the decision.
Meanwhile, Russian Ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova said that Denisova's attempt to meet with Sentsov violated "agreements reached previously."
Sentsov was arrested in Crimea in 2014 after Russia seized the Ukrainian region. A Russian court in 2015 convicted him of planning to commit terrorist acts and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. He denies the accusations.
Sentsov has been on hunger strike since May 14, demanding that Russia release 64 Ukrainian citizens he considers political prisoners.
Western governments and rights organizations have called for Sentsov to be released, and the Russian human rights group Memorial considers him a political prisoner.
The European Parliament on June 14 overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on Russian authorities to release Sentsov and all the other "illegally detained Ukrainian citizens" in Russia and Russian-controlled Crimea "immediately and unconditionally."
With reporting by TASS
A couple of items from our news desk:
Tymoshenko's Party Gathering Briefly Interrupted By Strip Protest
A conference organized by Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party in Kyiv was briefly disturbed by a protester on June 15.
Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and opposition leader, was on the podium preparing to address the audience of the New Course For Ukraine forum when a young man approached her and offered her flowers.
The man then briefly took off his T-shirt, revealing the message "The New Course of Ukraine" written on his back and accompanied by a thick red arrow pointing to his bottom.
Tymoshenko reacted to the incident with humor, smiling and telling the audience, "It was impromptu, but it will make our forum livelier."
Tymoshenko, who served as prime minister in 2005 and 2007-10, has said that Batkivshchyna intends to run in both the parliamentary and the presidential elections scheduled for 2019.
Based on a live broadcast on Facebook
This one's from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
Ukrainian Protesters Call For Boycott Of FIFA World Cup In Russia
A small demonstration was held on June 14 outside the European Union representative's office in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, calling for a boycott of the FIFA World Cup in Russia.
Protesters cited Russian aggression against Ukraine and drew particular attention to the hunger strike by Ukrainian director Oleh Sentsov, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence in Russia on terror charges widely condemned as politically motivated.
"A blood-soaked championship is taking place in Russia. Sentsov's hunger strike has lasted for a month," one female protester told an RFE/RL camera crew as she drew a sign in chalk on the sidewalk where the protest was staged.
"It's four years since they shot down a [Malaysian Airlines plane]. The war is continuing. Russia is now hosting delegations from European countries at the football championship, with enormous pathos, as if nothing [else] was happening in the world, as if it were not a country which has locked up an enormous number of Ukrainian political prisoners," she said.
Among European countries, only Britain and Ukraine are boycotting the World Cup, although England's soccer team and fans are participating in the games.
However, as the protest was occurring in Kyiv, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on Russia to "immediately and unconditionally" release Sentsov and other Ukrainian citizens it said were "illegally detained."
Sentsov was arrested in Crimea in 2014, after Russia seized the Ukrainian region. He has been on hunger strike in a Russian prison in the far-northern Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region since May 14.
Sentsov is demanding that Russia release 64 Ukrainian citizens he considers to be political prisoners.
Some updates from the OSCE monitoring team in Ukraine: