Vladimir Balukh

According to OVD-Info

In the past Balukh was a resident of Crimea and a pro-Ukrainian activist. The local authorities were displeased with the Ukrainian flag that he perched on the plot of land. In July 2014, he was detained during the visit of the chairman of the State Council of Crimea, Vladimir Konstantinov, to the village and was fined 500 rubles under the article on petty hooliganism. In November 2015, two searches were conducted on suspicion of theft of a combine harvester and a car. After the second search, Balukh was detained, beaten, accused of disobeying the lawful demands of police officers, and sentenced to administrative arrest for 10 days. Balukh was on a hunger strike for majority of the sentence. In the special detention centre, he was pressured by the Federal Security Service (FSB) officers. After leaving the detention centre, Balukh learned that policeman Yevgeny Baranov, who had beaten him, wrote a statement about Balukh insulting him. On 5 February 2016, Balukh was sentenced to 320 hours of community service for insulting a representative of authority. Court of appeal decided to revisit the decision. On 10 June, the same sentence was handed down, this time recognized as lawful by the court of appeal. On 11 October 2016, the sentence was changed to 40 days in an open prison due to a complaint by the penal inspection for "malicious evasion from serving community service". On 28 November, the decision came into force.

On 29 November 2016, Balukh installed a plaque in memory of the Heavenly Hundred on the plot of land. In the evening of the same day, the chairman of the council and his two assistants came to him and demanded the removal of the plaque. In December, Balukh was arrested on charges of illegal possession of ammunition and explosives. On 4 August 2017, he was sentenced to three years and seven months in a general regime penal colony. On 2 October, the court of appeal cancelled the verdict and returned the case for a retrial. On 1 December Balukh was transferred to house arrest. On 16 January 2018, he was sentenced to three years and seven months in an open prison, and fined 10,000 rubles. On 14 March, the Supreme Court of Crimea, having considered the appeal, reduced the term by two months.

On 29 August 2017, it became known that another case was filed against Balukh, this time on the use of violence against a representative of authority. According to the prosecution, on 11 August 2017 Balukh allegedly elbowed the head of the temporary detention facility in the village of Razdolnoye, police captain Valery Tkachenko, in the stomach, after which he went into the cell, took a cleaning supply bottle, and hit the captain's right hand. The defence claims that Tkachenko himself attacked Balukh, and previously, on the regular basis, was insulting and humiliating him on the basis of nationality. On 5 July 2018, Balukh was sentenced to five years in a general regime penal colony. On 3 October, the court of appeal reduced the prison term by one month.

On 19 March 2018, Balukh went on an indefinite hunger strike. Later, he began to consume a minimum set of products (two glasses of oatmeal kissel, 50-70 grams of black bread crumbs, and tea with honey). On 9 October it became known that Balukh intends to stop the hunger strike for the time of his transfer to the colony.

In January 2019, the court refused to recalculate Balukh's sentence in accordance with the law on crediting the period of detention before the entry into force of the verdict. In late February, Balukh's defence reported that the activist could have been transferred to the Tver Oblast. On 7 September 2019, Balukh was pardoned and released as part of the exchange of Ukrainian political prisoners for groups of individuals, and arrived onto the territory of Ukraine.