The self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ [DPR] and Russian media have given wide coverage to militant claims that the head of Ukraine’s counter-intelligence service was behind the killing of prominent militants, with US involvement also stressed

A Kyiv court has ordered that the investigation into the sudden death in a Kyiv cell of Oleksandr Rafalsky be resumed

The same Ukrainian MPs who rightly call for sanctions against those police, prosecutors and judges in Russia implicated in the torture and fabricated prosecutions of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and many other Ukrainians are silent about the injustice against other Ukrainians closer to home.

It is increasingly evident that the FSB have a great deal to conceal, including indications that the victims of its ‘Crimean saboteur’ plot were selected in advance and enticed into a trap .

The violent killing of Mikhail Tolstykh or ‘Givi’, one of the most identifiable militants involved in the Kremlin-backed fighting in Donbas was predictably, but not very credibly, attributed by the militant leadership to Ukrainian military saboteurs.

US President Donald Trump’s assertion in a recent interview that torture ‘works’ was shocking for several reasons, but it was also wrong. Most people, subjected to enough pain, will provide any answer to stop the torture. This is precisely why Russia’s FSB has systematically used such methods to imprison Ukrainian hostages.

While the use of torture by the police in areas not directly affected by the military conflict appears to have decreased, the scale of abuse and major rights violations in Russian-occupied Crimea and in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts has increased alarmingly since the military conflict began in 2014

Vitaly Pop was just 16 when he died of horrific injuries inflicted by Russian prison staff following his arrival in a ‘corrective prison’ for young offenders. He was probably picked out for ‘special treatment’ because of his Ukrainian accent, and his torturers used nationality-linked words of abuse while beating him

Two Ukrainians seized by Russia’s FSB and accused of a ‘Crimean sabotage’ plot have lodged formal complaints with Russia’s Investigative Committee. Both allege savage forms of torture applied by the FSB to extract ‘confessions’ and demand proper investigations

Oleksandr Rafalsky has died in a Ukrainian prison, let down to the end by Ukraine’s justice system and by the leaders who came to power following Euromaidan. He had spent 15 years in prison despite the lack of any evidence or motive to justify his life sentence and serious grounds for believing that any confessions in the case had been extracted through torture.

Vladimir Zhemchugov is now free and able to tell his story – that of a man defending his country. His testimony provides vital information about resistance to Kremlin-backed militants in the Luhansk oblast, as well as confirmation of the direct involvement by the Russian FSB and military in the conflict.

After several promised exchanges fell through, Volodymyr Zhemchugov, who has been held for almost a year, blinded, maimed and in a terrible state, has finally been released as part of an exchange of two hostages for four supporters of the Donbas militants held by Ukraine’s SBU

More details have emerged of torture methods used to obtain videoed ‘confessions’ from Ukrainians Russia is holding incommunicado and accusing of ‘sabotage’ in Russian-occupied Crimea

There has been a sharp deterioration in the health of 59-year-old Ilmi Umerov who has been forcibly placed in a psychiatric clinic in Russian-occupied Crimea despite the lack of any grounds for the criminal charges Russia has brought against him, or for the supposed ‘psychiatric assessment’.

With nothing to confirm Russia’s claims of Ukrainian ‘attacks’ in Russian-occupied Crimea except televised ‘confessions’, it is highly suspicious that the FSB are trying to prevent Yevhen Panov from seeing a proper lawyer.

23-year-old Volodymyr Fomichov was taken hostage by Kremlin-backed militants from the so-called ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ over 7 months ago when he tried to visit his family in Makiyivka for New Year. He has now been ‘tried’ by the militants and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.

The threatened Russian ‘response’ to alleged ‘attacks’ by Ukraine on Russian-occupied Crimea has not included answers to very basic questions, with the Russians supposedly killed remaining unnamed, together with almost all the alleged ’saboteurs’. One, however, in a format Russia has used since 2014, has now ’confessed’ on state-controlled Russian TV

On the positive features and failings of the report by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch

Description of cases that KHPG Strategic Litigation Center considered in the period January - June of 2016.