Oleg Sentsov's mother asks Putin to pardon her son

It’s Oleg Sentsov’s 42nd birthday, and his mother has written a public appeal to Vladimir Putin, asking the Russian president to pardon her son.

“It’s hard for me to judge my own son’s degree of guilt, but I know him as a peaceful citizen and a man devoted to his profession, filmmaking. I won’t convince you of Oleg’s innocence, though I believe in it myself. I’ll simply say that he didn’t kill anyone. He’s already served four years in prison. His children are waiting for him, and his youngest son suffers from autism. They’re worse off without him. They will never be happy without a father,” Lyudmila Sentsova wrote in a letter published on Ekho Moskvy.

Sentsov is 61 days into a hunger strike, demanding the release of 64 Ukrainian political prisoners now incarcerated across Russia. The filmmaker is serving a 20-year sentence for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks in Crimea.