On 7 April 2015 environmental activist Evgeny Vitiskho went on hunger strike in protest at a refusal by the Supreme Court on 20 March 2015 to consider his appeal against his custodial sentence. Vitishko was informed of the Supreme Court's decision on 6 April, and the next day he started a hunger strike in protest. On 31 March, a district court had adjourned Vitishko’s parole hearing until 15 April. The management of the penal colony in Tambov region where Vitishko is held has stated its opposition to parole for the prisoner.

Evgeny Vitishko was given a three-year suspended sentence in 2012 for spray-painting the fence of a property in a forested area of Krasnodar region in which construction was banned. The property is suspected of being a dacha belonging to the governor of Krasnodar region, Aleksandr Tkachev. In December 2013, a court in the city of Tuapse ruled Vitishko had violated the terms of the suspended sentence and sent him to prison. A higher court upheld that decision in February 2014.

Memorial Human Rights Centre considers Vitishko a political prisoner; Amnesty International has named him a "prisoner of conscience."

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