Russia has spent four years denying responsibility for the tanks and huge arsenal of weapons provided to Kremlin-controlled militants in Donbas, and using OSCE observers to purportedly back this denial.  While this is not the observers’ fault, the vast expanse of border area physically beyond their scope, as well as the clamps placed on what they are mandated to observe, must surely place the sense of their mission in question. 

Ukrainians gathered in Kyiv on March 13 to remember the first victim of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine in Donbas, and all other civilians killed during the senseless conflict.  Many of those present had themselves been forced into exile or fled for their lives after Russian and Russian-backed militants seized control in March – April 2014.   

Oleksiy Kanarskyy, a twenty-five-year old Ukrainian, never thought he would celebrate January 1 in freedom. His hopes had faded during three years of detention in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, after endless promises of a prisoners’ exchange between the Ukrainian government and Russian-backed separatists

Almost four years after the debunking of Russia’s attempt to claim that Anatoly Klyan was killed in a Ukrainian “attack on soldiers’ mothers and journalists’, Russia’s Investigative Committee has tried it on again

One of 26 tank drivers from the so-called Wagner private military company [PMC] was the proud recipient of a Russian state award ‘For Bravery’ in 2014. It is illegal in Russia to be a mercenary, but that is only one of many reasons for dismissing Moscow’s pretence that it has nothing to do with the Wagner PMC which has been deployed in both Ukraine and Syria. .

The Kyiv Court of Appeal has revoked the 9-year sentences passed on journalist Dmytro Vasylets and media worker Yevhen Timonin for their alleged help for the Novorosiya propaganda channel, and has ordered a retrial.  The two men, who have been in custody since November 2015, were placed under house arrest for two months and will have to wear electronic bracelets. 

Russia’s Defence Ministry has taken steps to stop soldiers divulging inconvenient information about their deployment in eastern Ukraine and other countries, which Moscow claims to have no involvement in

The bill, which passed last month with the support of 280 lawmakers in the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada, makes no reference to the Minsk agreements, raising questions about whether it could hamper efforts to end the fighting between the separatists and Kyiv’s forces.

Through the so-called ‘reintegration law’ recently adopted, Ukraine’s leaders have effectively distanced themselves from the urgent need to compensate people in Donbas whose homes have been destroyed.  Russia may well bear full moral and financial liability for the devastation caused in Donbas, and the fact that so many Crimeans were forced to leave their homes, but the chances of forcing it to provide compensation are next to nil, and Ukrainian citizens need help now.

A court in the Luhansk oblast has convicted a 22-year-old Russian national Victor Ageyev on terrorism charges for fighting on the side of Kremlin-backed militants, and sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment.  The indictment  mentioned nothing about Ageyev being a Russian contract soldier, despite the man himself and his mother having confirmed this after his capture, as well as other substantiating evidence. 

The fact that Viktor Ageyev has now changed his story and is denying being a Russian contract soldier is in itself nothing new. What is more disturbing is that the prosecution is now going along with this new story.

A respected international investigative group says it has identified a senior Russian general as a figure of interest in the downing of a civilian airliner over eastern Ukraine in 2014.

While media reports of Roman Manekin’s brutal murder remain unconfirmed, there seems no doubt that the prominent Russian journalist and propagandist for the so-called ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ [DPR] was taken prisoner shortly after strong criticism of at least one of the ‘DPR’ leaders. There are also reports that the reason for his disappearance may lie in his denial of the official militant line on the killing of Russian warlord Arseny Pavlov, more notorious as ‘Motorola’.

A court in the Zhytomyr oblast has sentenced journalist Dmytro Vasylets and media worker Yevhen Timonin to nine years’ imprisonment for helping Donbas militants set up the pro-Russian and militantly anti-Ukrainian ‘Novorossiya TV propaganda channel. 

The trial could begin in the next few weeks of Viktor Ageyev, the latest serving Russian soldier to be captured in the Luhansk oblast of Ukraine.  Ageyev will be represented by a Ukrainian state-appointed lawyer since Russia has refused to provide him with legal aid

Vladislav Surkov, advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin took part on October 16 in the ceremonial opening in Rostov (Russia) of a memorial to Russian or pro-Russian fighters who died in Donbas.  The event was timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the death of Russian mercenary Arseny Pavlov [‘Motorola’’], whom Ukraine had hoped to see on trial for war crimes, but whom Russia treats as a hero

Russia has pushed plenty of conflicting stories to blur its direct involvement in the downing by Russian or pro-Russian militants of MH17 on July 17, 2014, but decided to remove a particularly absurd version presented by TV Zvezda, a channel linked with the Defence Ministry.  This was broadcast on October 6, a day after a report from the self-proclaimed and Russian-backed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ [DPR] made different allegations, this time based on a Ukrainian defector.

There is an urgent need for Ukraine to formally recognize the soldiers who were taken prisoner by Russian or Russian-backed fighters as prisoners of war, yet Ukraine’s parliament is procrastinating on this, and on other measures to coordinate efforts to bring the men back home

More details have emerged of the scale and the money used to recruit Russians willing to fight Russia’s undeclared wars in Ukraine and Syria.  The new documents give the lie to the claims that any Russians inadvertently found fighting against the Ukrainian army in Donbas are there as ‘volunteers’ . The trail leads to one millionaire with close connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin and to the Russian Defence Ministry.   

19-year-old Pavlo Hryb has not been seen since he arrived in Gomel, Belarus on August 24 and his father has ominous grounds for believing that his son may have been tricked by a young woman into entering Belarus and then abducted in what was a Russian FSB operation