Ukrainian national Stanislav Klykh, whom a Russian court sentenced to 20 years in a penal colony over his participation in the Chechen war, may have been admitted to hospital last week, his lawyer Nikolay Novikov has told Radio Liberty.
"We were told that he was transferred to a hospital in Chelyabinsk. We have not been able to check this so far. His mother was planning to visit him, now it is on hold. We are trying to check this," he said.
Chelyabinsk rights activist Tatyana Shchur earlier also said that Klykh had been admitted to hospital. She told OVD-Info that the news of the transfer reached her on 15 August but it is still unclear what hospital out of three eligible ones he was taken to.
As reported earlier, on 26 May 2016, Chechnya's Supreme Court sentenced Ukrainian nationals Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh to 22.5 and 20 years in prison for fighting against the federal troops during the first Chechen campaign. Karpyuk was arrested in March 2014 and Klykh in August 2014.
It was Ukrainian national Oleksandr Malofeyev who testified against them. He also said that Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk also fought in Chechnya.
In October 2016, the Russian Supreme Court upheld the guilty verdicts.