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BRUSSELS (AP) — A year after he won Europe’s top human rights award, Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov finally picked up the prize Tuesday, and he warned Europe against trusting Russia.
Sentsov spent five years in a prison colony in Russia’s Arctic far-north where he was held on terror charges. He was freed in a prisoner swap in September.
He opposed Russia’s 2014 annexation from Ukraine of his native Crimea region, and staged a 144-day hunger strike to protest the jailing of dozens of Ukrainians in Russia.
On Tuesday, Sentsov told European lawmakers to be wary of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s overtures as peace talks approach and called on them to remember the Ukrainians killed and jailed by Russia.
The EU award is named after Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov.
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