The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses its resolute protest over the illegal and politically motivated decision of the so-called "court" of the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea in the case of citizen of Ukraine Volodymyr Balukh.

Sentencing Volodymyr Balukh to three years and seven months in a penal colony under absurd and fabricated charges the Kremlin has again testified to its unwillingness to give up the policy of targeted repressions and intimidations against the Ukrainian citizens in the temporarily occupied Crimean peninsula.

We urge the aggressor and occupant state to halt violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms of the residents of the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory and to immediately release Volodymyr Balukh and other illegally detained citizens of Ukraine.

Russia must stop the illegal occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol and implement to their full the resolutions of the UN General Assembly "Territorial integrity of Ukraine" of 27 March 2014, "Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (Ukraine)" of 19 December 2016 and of 19 December 2017 as well as the order of the International Court of Justice regarding provisional measures in the in the case of Ukraine vs Russia regarding the application  of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

We call on our international partners to intensify political and diplomatic pressure on the Kremlin in order to make the occupant state to stop criminal oppression and persecutions of Ukrainian citizens in the occupied Crimea and to withdraw from the sovereign territories of Ukraine.