The BBC’s Russian Service has tracked down several Russian military men who were almost certainly killed in Donbas, fighting a war that Russia is still claiming that it has nothing to do with.

A grave has been exhumed in Sloviansk containing the remains of people killed during the months in 2014 when Sloviansk was under the control of ‘former’ Russian military intelligence officer Igor Girkin and his militants. 

33 fighters from the notorious Wagner ‘private military company’ have been in custody in Belarus since 29 July after they were very publicly seized by the Belarusian KGB

Former hostages tortured by Russian-controlled Donbas militants have added their voices to demands that Verkhovna Rada deputies finally pass a bill on fighting war crimes and crimes against humanity

6 years after a Russian BUK missile downed Malaysian airliner MH17, killing 298 passengers and crew, Russia is still pushing ‘alternative versions’ to deny its involvement, while also continuing its unrelenting flow of weapons of death to its proxy ‘republics’ in Donbas

This is the second attack on Valentina Buchok who was savagely tortured and imprisoned in the Russian proxy Donetsk ‘republic’ and can provide vital testimony against the Russian-controlled militants and against the company linked to Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.

The Russian-controlled militants in Donbas are actively using coronavirus quarantine restrictions as an excuse for denying access to OSCE monitors, while Russia continues its secret night convoys across the border quite unimpeded

A court in Kyiv has made hearings in the trial of Roman Lyahin closed to the public, with this only one of the disturbing developments in Ukraine’s prosecution of the former ideologue of the so-called ‘Donetsk people’s republic’

There is silence in Russia’s proxy Donbas ‘republics’, and consternation from Russian World fanatics over the exposure of Alexei Mozgovoy, one of the supposed Donbas “heroes”, to whom monuments have been erected, as a criminal who gunned down a whole family for money

The first two days in the trial of three Russians and a Ukrainian over the downing of Malaysian airliner MH17 over Ukraine on 17 July 2014 have demonstrated just how incriminating the proceedings will be for Russia

Three of the four defendants are Russian former or current FSB or military intelligence officers, who, investigators believe, “formed a chain linking the self-proclaimed Donetsk people’s republic with the Russian Federation”

? Ukrainian human rights groups and former hostages with chilling stories of torture and other crimes are calling on Ukrainian MPs to adopt a draft law No. 2689 that can put an end to virtual impunity for war criminals.

There are no grounds for seeing anything figurative in Stanislav Aseyev’s words about Izolyatsia, the secret ‘prison’ in Donetsk where he, Stanislav Pechonkin and other former hostages – men and women - were tortured

The Netherlands has rejected a Russian offer “to prosecute” three Russian former or current FSB and military intelligence [GRU] officers whose trial in absentia over the downing of Malaysian airliner MH17 is due to begin on 9 March

Vladimir Pashkov, who left a top Russian regional government post three weeks before Russia’s invasion of Crimea, has now been made ‘acting prime minister’ of the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic

Civil organisations “Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group” and Shore of Peace (Lutsk) presents this review containing a variety of information about the alleged crimes committed during the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine between 2014–2019. KHPG and SP find that the crimes enumerated in this communication constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC.

The so-called ‘ E.N.O.T Corporation’, a once lavishly-funded Russian ‘private military company’ that helped Russia seize control of Crimea and fought in Donbas has run into trouble with the Russian enforcement bodies, with all kinds of incriminating details emerging

This directly contradicts what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Prosecutor General Ruslan Riaboshapka have claimed, and clarity from them on what exactly was agreed is urgently required

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reiterated the unsubstantiated claims Russia used to justify its invasion and annexation of Crimea, this time with respect to occupied Donbas

Ukraine has passed information to the International Criminal Court [ICC] in the Hague about extrajudicial executions of nine Ukrainian soldiers taken prisoner during the battles for Ilovaisk and Debaltseve