It has long been assumed that a hostage release might be arranged in advance of Ukraine’s parliamentary elections as a boost to Viktor Medvedchuk, a highly controversial Ukrainian politician and friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The release is, however, frustratingly limited

A month after Russia was ordered by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea [ITLOS] to release 24 Ukrainian servicemen it is holding prisoner

Over two years ago, in June 2017, a Ukrainian writer and journalist Stanislav Aseev was abducted in Donetsk on the temporarily occupied territory. Abductors – the so-called Ministry of State Security of the DPR – denied their involvement in this case, having admitted only after a month and a half that the journalist has been imprisoned on espionage charges.

The Kirovsky District Court in Russian-occupied Crimea has sentenced Edem Kadyrov to four years’ imprisonment and a further year’s restricted liberty for allegedly belonging to the Asker (or Noman Çelebicihan) volunteer battalion

The trial of 32-year-old Kostyantin Davydenko is taking place behind closed doors before a ’judge’ who has already sentenced political prisoner Yevhen Panov to 8 years’ imprisonment despite the lack of any evidence to back extremely implausible charges

On 21 April, then President-Elect Volodymyr Zelensky called the release of all political prisoners and PoWs his priority.  He now has every opportunity to make that a reality and the relatives of the prisoners and human rights groups have given him a road map on where to begin

The de facto High Court in Russian-occupied Crimea has upheld a 10.5 year sentence against a young Crimean Tatar,  Fevzi Sahandzhy despite the latter’s allegations of torture and the lack of any criminal behaviour in the charges

Ukrainian rights activist Andrey Yarovoi (Andriy Yarovyi] has become the laureate of the 2019 Carol and Travis Jenkins Award for his outstanding contribution to reducing drug-related harm, although he is imprisoned in the so-called ’Luhansk people’s republic’ and could not receive it himself.

Oleksiy Bessarabov and Volodymyr Dudka have been sentenced by a Russian-controlled Sevastopol court to 14 years’ imprisonment on entirely fabricated ‘sabotage’ charges

At least four of the 24 Ukrainian prisoners of war whom Russia seized on 25 November 2018 have been taken to the Serbsky Institute for supposed psychiatric assessment.  All the men are likely to be subjected to what, in the given situation, amounts to punitive psychiatry

Russia had seized its first Ukrainian political prisoner even before completing its illegal annexation.   Mykola Shyptur has now been imprisoned for over five years serving a 9-year sentence on a surreal charge of attempting to murder men who were trying to abduct, and probably kill, him

In its first quarterly report since Russia’s attack on three Ukrainian naval ships near Crimea, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has clearly stated that Russia is in breach of international humanitarian law and that the 24 Ukrainians seized on 25 November 2018 are prisoners of war

Russia’s attack on Ukrainian naval vessels and seizure of 24 POWs were condemned by the international community but the sanctions thus far have been “like a pinprick to an elephant”, according to Nikolai Polozov, the coordinator of the lawyers representing the 24 Ukrainians

Maxim Sokurenko has been remanded in custody in occupied Crimea and could face a three-year prison sentence for hurling a bit of paint at a monument to the Russian soldiers without insignia who seized control of Crimea five years ago

It is indicative of the questionable nature of all such prosecutions that Russian-controlled reports of this sentence used identical video footage to that shown in reporting another alleged arrest of a ‘battalion member’ on that very same day.

PACE has called on Russia to release all 24 Ukrainian servicemen seized on 25 November 2018, and has insisted that their treatment must be in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, one of which regulates treatment of prisoners of war. 

After claiming that Edem Bekirov, an amputee who has a serious heart condition, is an Asker Battalion fighter, the Russian FSB is now hiding the face of another Crimean Tatar arrested on similar charges, and carrying out armed searches of the parents of activists living in mainland Ukraine

The self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ has ‘sentenced’ Stanislav Pechonkin to 10 years’ imprisonment, after taking the young man hostage while he was visiting Horlivka, which is under the Russian-controlled ‘republic’s’ control. 

If Russia has nothing to hide in its ‘prosecution’ of 24 Ukrainian POWs, why is the FSB asking for their detention court hearings to be held behind closed doors?  

Olena Sorokina disappeared on 30 October 2018, but as with many hostages seized in the self-proclaimed ‘Luhansk people’s republic’ [LPR], details have taken months to emerge