While 7 September was certainly a day for rejoicing at the return to Ukraine of 35 Ukrainian political prisoners (including 24 PoWs), there was also huge sadness for the families who are still waiting the release of their fathers or sons

The exchange has finally happened!

Exactly five years ago, Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia’s ‘Investigative Committee’ threatened to “come and get" all those Ukrainians it wanted to put on trial and claimed it has “the right history gives us to carry out a criminal investigation.”

Yevhen Panov is only 42, but he looks ten years older after the torture he was subjected to and almost three years in Russian captivity.

Serhiy Lytvynov, one of the Ukrainians most savagely tortured in 2014 for Russian propaganda, is safely back in Ukraine, though for the moment he remains imprisoned

The Ukrainian political prisoner, jailed by Russia for the Ukrainian flag he refused to renounce, is virtually permanently being held in a cold and dark punishment cell without warm clothing, and with even his psalm book having been taken from him. >

The Russian prison service is treating Volodymyr Balukh as a Russian citizen and refusing to let him see the Ukrainian consul.  Balukh is imprisoned for his peaceful opposition to Russia’s occupation of Crimea and was subjected to farcical ‘trials’ as a Ukrainian, so the move now to deny him his citizenship is especially lawless

It is five years today since Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov was seized by Russian FSB and tortured in occupied Crimea. If the allegations of torture were untrue, why is Russia lying about when he was arrested?

A Russian-controlled ‘court’ in Crimea has illegally increased the period that Ukrainian political prisoner Volodymyr Balukh will be forced to spend in Russian captivity

No child can be prepared for the trauma of seeing masked men waving machine guns burst into their home and force their father to the ground.  That was the experience for 55 children on 27 March, many of whom watched in terror as the men took their fathers away in handcuffs

Russia’s Human Rights Ombudsperson’s complaint that Ukraine is persecuting Crimeans comes as around 80 Ukrainians are illegally deprived of their liberty in occupied Crimea or Russia, as well as 24 POWs Unlike Moskalkova, we can name the victims of persecution

INTERPOL has added a 20-year-old Ukrainian to the international wanted list despite ample grounds for suspecting Russia’s motives in seeking to prosecute him.  Stefan Kapinos shared the same social media account as  Pavlo Hryb, the Ukrainian student whom Russia illegally kidnapped from Belarus in August 2017 and has held prisoner ever since.

The number of Russia’s Ukrainian prisoners of war and political prisoners has almost reached 100, and that is without counting well over 100 POWs and civilian hostages in occupied Donbas whose release is directly dependent on Moscow .  

The appointment of Alexander Prokopchuk as Head of INTERPOL would have shown terrifying disregard by member states for the horrific torture used to fabricate the show trials of Ukrainian political prisoners, like Mykola Karpyuk and Stanyslav Klykh

NGOs directly involved in helping the prisoners and their families have reacted with indignation to attempts to exclude them from the proceedings and point out that secrecy where public funding is concerned is unacceptable and carries the risk of corruption.

Mustafa Dzhemilev has made a particular request for his birthday, namely that it be made a special day for the children of the ever-mounting number of political prisoners under Russian occupation

Russia’s renowned Memorial Human Rights Centre has once again marked Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression on 30 October by publishing new lists of political prisoners currently held in Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea. 

Russia’s ‘terrorist’ narrative about Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov took another blow on 25 October when the Kremlin’s most famous political prisoner was awarded the EU’s prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Oleg Sentsov has announced that, in the face of imminent commencement of force-feeding, he is ending his hunger strike from 6 October

Lawyer Dmitry Dinze has confirmed a sharp deterioration in Oleg Sentsov’s condition which almost certainly explained his being taken to hospital on 28 September