Further important insight on the worrying referendum in the Netherlands on the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement

The author describes how a referendum once introduced as the ultimate form of democracy has been hijacked in Holland, and is serving those in Russia whose basic rules of the game are simple – that the EU should crumble before Russia goes down the drain

Prominent Jewish religious and civic leaders have addressed a moving appeal to the people of the Netherlands who are due to shortly vote in a referendum on whether to ratify the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement

This overview of the human rights situation is the first section of the Ukrainian human rights organizations’ Report ‘Human Rights in Ukraine – 2015’ which is published each year by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union

OSCE Secretary-General Lamberto Zannier says it’s difficult for the OSCE monitors to determine whether Russian soldiers and arms are crossing into Ukraine now because they only have a mandate to observe at two border crossings, where they are positioned on the Russian side.

A year after Vladimir Putin agreed that all hostages and prisoners of war would be released on an all for all basis, the militants who answer to Moscow are not only refusing to release those seized earlier, but have recently taken others prisoner.

Ruslan Leviev, Russian blogger and head of the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), is convinced that the order for the offensive on Debaltseve in Donbas was issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

If Russian involvement in the making of French filmmaker Paul Moreira’s “Masks of the Revolution’ remains in question, there can be no doubt about the Russian propaganda drive now underway. The undisputed coup comes in the ‘human rights award’ to the creators of this film about Euromaidan and other events in Ukraine over the last two years “for courage and professionalism”.

There are hundreds of unmarked graves in Donetsk cemeteries, most of them belonging to the Russian nationals killed in a war Russia unleashed and continues to deny any involvement in

The Memorial Human Rights Centre notes that even against the violations of international law linked with Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the fact that Khaiser Dzhemiliev is being held in a Russian prison is unprecedented

Is Russian state television making use of paid, Russian-speaking interview subjects to paint a picture of an out-of-control migrant crisis in Germany?

Kremlin-backed militants in Donetsk are reported to have seized a number of local residents, including a volunteer Marina Cherenkova and religious specialist Ihor Kozlovsky and are holding them prisoner. The news coincides with an orchestrated demonstration in Donetsk against the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church and what were termed “other sects”

If anybody wants a quick reminder of how easy it is to mislead film viewers, they should watch Paul Moreira’s ‘Masks of the Revolution’. They may then wish to ask France’s popular Canal Plus cable television channel why it has collaborated in the making of such a film and why it has scheduled its broadcast for Feb 1.

All post offices in Russian-occupied Crimea have been sent a list of Crimeans supposedly suspected of or sentenced for ‘extremism or terrorism’, and told to inform Russia’s FSB if any correspondence arrives for them or anybody asks for it

The Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, announced his decision to send a delegation to Crimea on Jan 25 in order to assess the human right situation on the peninsula.

The Kremlin-backed militants of the so-called ‘Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics’ are refusing to allow Ukrainian parties to take part in their local elections. This alone would make Western recognition questionable and it is only one of multiple sticking points.

Almost two years after Russia banned world-renowned Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemiliev from his native Crimea, a court in Simferopol has ordered his arrest, claiming that he "is hiding from the investigators"

The Crimean parliament in Russian-occupied Crimea has accused Ukraine of ‘genocide’ over the electricity blockade, ignoring the fact that it is Vladimir Putin who has ensured that Crimeans will long suffer critical shortages

Poland’s new government has just passed a highly contentious law on police surveillance and is set to give the current Justice Minister powers never before held in democratic Poland

20 months after the deadly disturbances and fire in Odesa on May 2, 2014, Ukraine’s law enforcement bodies have not only failed to properly investigate the events and find those responsible, but are effectively sabotaging the investigation.