Jailed Pro-Kyiv Russian Activist Starts Hunger Strike
By RFE/RL's Russian Service
A Russian activist in the southern region of Krasnodar jailed for propagating extremism and separatism online has started a hunger strike in custody, her mother says.
Darya Polyudova's mother, Tatyana Polyudova, says her daughter started the hunger strike on August 2 to protest conditions in the penal colony.
According to Tatyana Polyudova, other inmates in the penal colony constantly mistreat her daughter and provoke her into conflicts.
She added that political prisoners should be kept separately from other convicts.
Tatyana Polyudova said her daughter suspects the penal colony's administration is behind the pressure on her.
Darya Polyudova was sentenced to two years in a minimum-security penal colony in December 2015, becoming the first person in Russia convicted under a law criminalizing calls for separatism on the Internet, legislation that came into force in May 2014.
She was indicted in 2014 after she made pro-Ukrainian statements online critical of Moscow for its support of pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine, where fighting between government forces and the separatists has killed more than 10,000 people since April 2014.
The Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center has added Polyudova to its list of political prisoners in Russia.
With reporting by OVD-Info
Here is today's map of the latest situation in the Donbas conflict zone, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry:
Here's an update on the Yanukovych story (from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service):
Former Ukrainian President's Treason Trial Adjourned Again
KYIV -- A Ukrainian judge has adjourned the in-absentia treason trial of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Judge Vladyslav Devyatko rejected a request by Yanukovych to give him another month to get acquainted with the case and adjourned the trial until August 10.
Devyatko also denied a motion on August 3 by Yanukovych's state-appointed lawyer, Vitaliy Meshechek, for a one-month delay.
Yanukovych's previous lawyers withdrew from the case on July 6, saying the former president had informed them that he no longer needed their services.
Yanukovych announced on that day that he would not participate in the trial, charging that it was politically motivated. The court then decided to hold the trial in absentia and provide Yanukovych with a state-appointed lawyer.
Yanukovych abandoned office in late February 2014 and fled to Russia in the face of protests triggered by his decision to scrap plans for a landmark deal with the European Union and instead improved trade ties with Moscow.
Dozens of people were killed when his government attempted to clamp down on the pro-European protests known as the Euromaidan.
Prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment for Yanukovych, who is accused of treason, violating Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and abetting Russian aggression.
After he fled, Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and fomented opposition to the central government in eastern Ukraine, where the ensuing war between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014.