"Who could have imagined that in the 21st century in the centre of Europe we would be seeing widespread repression unleashed on the basis of religion? (Said Ismagilov, Mufti of the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Ukraine)

As feared, it seems that the occupation regime’s demand that religious communities re-register according to Russian legislation is being used as a weapon to remove many churches that have long existed in the Crimea.

The first pronouncements by the head of a new mufftiat formed in the Crimea and a scandalous mosque seizure have aroused suspicion that the moves are aimed at creating a schism among Crimean Muslims and weakening the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People which has consistently opposed Russia’s occupation of the Crimea.

The boarding school for gifted children in the village of Tankove, Bakhchysarai district was subjected to a search on Tuesday

In the latest hunt for non-existent ‘extremism’ carried out by Russia’s FSB and the Crimean occupation regime, law enforcement officers have carried out searches of s number of Crimean Tatar homes. The Mejlis, or Crimean Tatar representative body considers the searches a form of deliberate intimidation

The Crimean prosecutor under Russian occupation has fined the director of a Dzhanoye district madrasa or religious school for possession of what it considers ‘extremist’ material

The director of a Crimean Muslim school is facing court proceedings for possessing books from Russia’s list of prohibited ‘extremist literature’. Under Russian occupation ‘extremism’ is increasingly becoming a weapon particularly aimed at Crimean Tatars

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has pointed to ongoing concerns, the imprisonment of Oleg Sentsov and three other activists; the banning of Refat Chubarov and Mustafa Dzhemiliev from their homeland; religious harassment; and much more, with none of its previous recommendations implemented

The funeral has taken place of four members, two deacons and the sons of the Pastor of he Slovyansk evangelical Church of the Transformation tortured and killed by Kremlin-backed militants from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.

Faced with the murder by Kremlin-backed militants of four members of a Slovyansk evangelical church, Russia’s state-owned ‘Voice of Russia’ radio could have stayed silent. It opted for a far more cynical approach. Against all evidence, it reports that the men were murdered by the Ukrainian army for helping ‘insurgents’.

A Polish Roman Catholic priest from Horlivka, Father Viktor Wąsowicz has been taken hostage by the Kremlin-backed militants whom certain EU leaders are joining Russia in insisting that Ukraine holds peace negotiations with.

Father Tkhon has been released and is in a safe place after being held by militants from the so-called ‘Russian Orthodox Army’. According to Pastor Sergey Kosyak Father Tikhon is in a very bad state both physically and mentally

A priest from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, Yury Ivanov was abducted on July 8, and Father Tikhon remains a hostage of the so-called ‘Russian Orthodox Army’

There are serious grounds for concern that Father Tikhon who is also secretary of the inter-faith Council of Churches and Religious Organizations of the Donetsk Oblast and one of the organizers of the prayer ‘marathon’ in Donetsk may have been seized by Kremlin-backed militants

In the latest of a series of affronts and infringements of the rights of Crimean Tatars under Russian occupation, a madrasa or Muslim school in the Crimea has been subjected to a long search by armed and masked men looking for evidence of ’extremism’ and arms.

Said Ismagilov, Mufti of the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Ukraine [UMMA] has addressed a moving appeal for mercenaries to stay away. “We do not exchange our country for money and a stable dictatorship. There are things which are not for sale.”

In a move which may indicate the growing divide between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church, one of the UOC MP’s leading clergy, Metropolitan Oleksandr [Drabynko] has condemned the armed attack on the church in Perevalne, outside Simferopol

In the Crimean village of Perevalne believers at a church under the Kyiv Patriarchate have been attacked by armed men, probably so-called ‘Cossacks’, and the church itself seriously vandalized

A worrying outline of some of the ways in which the right of religious freedom in Crimea is under threat after Russian occupation

Ukraine’s three main churches are working together in providing spiritual and moral support to Ukraine’s soldiers, while pressure on the Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate has prompted the Crimean Tatars to offer their mosques for church services