If Russia’s frightening militarization of childhood at home is aimed at getting young people to love and want to ‘defend’ their country, in occupied Crimea, Russia also wants children to hate Ukraine

One of a barrage of repressive laws with implications for occupied Crimea is one steeply increasing punishment for something loosely termed ‘defamation’

Russia has begun its most overtly repressive mass trial of Crimean Tatar civic journalists and activists three days before New Year in an obvious attempt to minimize publicity for ‘trials’ aimed at c silencing those who tell the world about Russia"s violations in occupied Crimea

The ‘police’ in Russian-occupied Crimea effectively abducted Vilen Temeryanov on 28 December, holding the Crimean Solidarity civic journalist in custody on nonsensical charges of ‘organizing a mass event’

Ukraine’s Security Service [SBU] have initiated criminal charges against 80-year-old retired teacher, Volodymyr Tereshchenko over a picture and caption he merely reposted on Facebook over two years ago

The trial has begun in Russian-occupied Crimea of Aider Kadyrov, a civic journalist reporting on human rights violations for Crimean Solidarity and the Russian website Grani.ru

The question is – where in Ukraine ends the freedom of expression and starts the state treason? The boundary between them is not defined.

The man accused of the savage killing in 2014 of Ukrainian journalist and Maidan activist Vasyl Serhiyenko was released from custody on 3 December despite protests from both the public prosecutor and civic activists

Valery Bolshakov, a left-wing activist from Russian-occupied Sevastopol, has received a two and a half year suspended sentence, with a two-year trial period, for a picket and speech under the slogan ‘Down with the Putin police regime!’ in which he called for “the dictatorship of the proletariat”

Controversial Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk cannot erase his shameful role, as a Soviet state-appointed lawyer, in the political trial of the great Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus, but he is trying to silence those who write about the part he played

Ukraine’s parliamentarians are due to consider the revised version of a draft law on the media in the last week of September

Although no restrictions have been imposed on his public activities, any such journalist activities in occupied Crimea carry enormous risks

Andriy Portnov was essentially found to have been entitled to divulge personal data, because the former top Yanukovych aide objected to the Skhemy anti-corruption journalists’ investigation into his activities

The real aim of five clone trials is almost certainly to deflect attention from Russia’s most brazen attack to date on Crimean Tatar civic journalists and activists informing the world about violations in occupied Crimea and helping the victims of persecution

A Russian prosecutor has demanded sentences of between 15 and 21 years against eight Crimean Tatar civic journalists and activists, including Crimean Solidarity Coordinator and Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, Server Mustafayev

Liubov Velychko has lodged a formal complaint over police failure to properly investigate the serious threats and harassment she has faced since her shocking investigation into the influence of certain Russian or pro-Russian Telegram channels on legislators from the ruling Servant of the People party.

The widow of murdered Ukrainian journalist and civic activist Vasyl Serhiyenko has addressed an impassioned appeal to President Volodymyr Zelensky, asking him to take the case under his personal control

This attack comes just days after a Skhemy journalist discovered evidence of surveillance equipment in his home and several months after one rather notorious politician published personal date about Skhemy journalists and one of their drivers.

It has become so standard that ‘courts’ automatically extend detention without trial of Ukrainian political prisoners, that the hearings are scarcely worth reporting. Except when something goes wrong, which is what happened in the case of Osman Arifmemetov

The latest court hearing in the drawn-out trial of men suspected of killing Cherkasy Maidan activist and journalist Vasyl Serhiyenko took an unexpected turn on 16 July when the judge in the case was herself formally informed by prosecutors that she is facing criminal charges