Russia should vacate sentence to Pavlo Hryb and return him to Ukraine - State Department

The United States condemned the Russian court's verdict against Ukrainian political prisoner Pavlo Hryb and called on Russia to immediately release him and return home, the U.S. Department of State has stated.

“We condemn Russia’s conviction and 6-year sentence of Ukrainian Pavlo Hryb. He was targeted for opposing Russian aggression against Ukraine,” Deputy Spokesperson of the U.S. Department of State Robert Palladino posted on Twitter on Saturday.

He also stressed that the U.S. side was concerned about his health.

“Russia should immediately return him to Ukraine, and vacate his conviction,” the official stressed.

Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin urged the world to put more pressure on Russia to rescue and free Pavlo Hryb.

The European Union condemned the Russian court's verdict against Ukrainian citizen Pavlo Hryb.

As reported, Pavlo Hryb disappeared on August 24, 2017 in Belarus, where he went to the city of Gostomel to date a girl with whom he communicated on social networking sites.

In September, it became known that Pavlo Hryb was in a detention center in Krasnodar (Russia), charged with terrorism. At the same time, his lawyer said that Pavlo had been kidnapped by FSB officers.

On March 22, 2019, the Russian court sentenced Pavlo Hryb to six years in a prison colony of general regime.

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