Sushchenko sends new drawing from Russian prison

Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko, illegally convicted in Russia, has sent a new drawing from a penal colony in the village of Utrobino, Russia's Kirov region - a landscape with St. Sophia Cathedral, Ukrinform reports.

He wrote on the back of the picture: "Roman Sushchenko, January 2019. Kyiv. St. Sophia Cathedral. XI century. Paper, pencil, ballpoint pen, pastel, water. our days, the village Utrobino, Kirovo-Chepetsk, Vyatka."

Previous pictures of the Ukrainian political prisoner from the prison in Utrobino were a winter landscape with the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, a floral still life, two drawings made for his son, and Rouen Cathedral.

As reported, the Cultural and Information Center of the Ukrainian Embassy in Paris (France) will host an exhibition of creative works titled "Art from Behind the Bars" by Ukrinform's correspondent in France Roman Sushchenko.

Twenty enlarged photocopies of Sushchenko's drawings created in the Lefortovo Prison will be presented at the exhibition.

The exhibition was held last year in Kyiv. Then the pictures were shown at the Brussels Press Club.

Ukrinform's Paris-based correspondent Roman Sushchenko was illegally detained on September 30, 2016 in Moscow, where he arrived on a private trip. On October 7, 2016, he was charged with "espionage." Russia's FSB claimed that Sushchenko is a member of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. The latter denied this allegation.

On June 4, 2018, the Moscow City Court sentenced Sushchenko to 12 years in a high-security penal colony. The Supreme Court of Russia upheld the verdict on September 12.

On October 8, it was reported that Sushchenko had been moved to a penal colony. On November 7, the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) informed Ukraine's Embassy in Moscow that Sushchenko had been transferred to Penal Colony No. 11 of the FSIN directorate for the Kirov region (the town of Kirovo-Chepetsk, the village of Utrobino).