Graham Phillips, a Briton well-known for his propaganda coverage in excruciatingly bad Russian of the Kremlin-provoked and armed conflict in Donbas, has been detained by police in Riga. This has given pro-Kremlin media a particular boost with Phillips himself claiming he was simply standing and filming ‘fascists’.

The de facto authorities under Russian occupation have refused to allow the traditional gathering in Simferopol on March 9. Gatherings to lay flowers and read Taras Shevchenko’s works required courage under the Soviet regime and could result in arrests. For Crimea under Russian occupation those times have returned.

Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers has come up with a solution for fighting all the ills like corruption and lack of reform that are seriously damaging the country’s reputation. They have issued a resolution which demands that civil servants, and even the heads of state enterprises refrain from publicly criticizing the authorities and public officials

It is almost a year since Russia tried to silence the unique Crimean Tatar television channel ATR, forcing it to close in Russian-occupied Crimea. Relaunched in Kyiv, the channel is now again in danger and, gallingly, this time it is inaction from the Ukrainian government which is jeopardizing the channel’s existence

Amnesty International has named Ukrainian freelance journalist and blogger Ruslan Kotsaba a prisoner of conscience in its latest report. The NGO’s coverage of events in Donbas and Crimea can be disputed, but its assessment of Kotsaba’s ongoing imprisonment over contentious utterances but on even more dubious charges seems depressingly fair

If Russian involvement in the making of French filmmaker Paul Moreira’s “Masks of the Revolution’ remains in question, there can be no doubt about the Russian propaganda drive now underway. The undisputed coup comes in the ‘human rights award’ to the creators of this film about Euromaidan and other events in Ukraine over the last two years “for courage and professionalism”.

Sébastien Gobert writes that he feels insulted as a French journalist living in Kyiv by the “compilation of factual mistakes, exaggerations and misleading set-ups in Moreira’s film “Les Masques de la Révolution”

The European Court of Human Rights will be judging whether criticism of Russia’s forced annexation of Crimea constitutes a ‘public call to violate Russia’s territorial integrity’ and warranted the 3-year sentence passed on Tatar activist Rafis Kashapov

Despite one small but important victory, protection of journalists carrying out their work remains on paper, with the norm criminalizing obstruction of journalists in their work seldom applied. Most worryingly such impunity continues in cases where journalists have been exposing alleged corruption by law enforcement officials.

The Ukrainian website LIGA.net has been added to Russia’s considerable List of Banned Sites after it refused to remove words spoken by exiled Crimean Tatar leader Refat Chubarov about the war with Russia which cannot end until Russia ends its occupation of Crimea

Zair Akadyrov, a well-known Crimean Tatar journalist and blogger, was detained on Friday morning by officials from the so-called ‘Centre for Countering Extremism’ at the trial of Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz and other Crimean Tatars who are facing legally grotesque charges over a pre-annexation demonstration

A Polish civic activist has been banned from Facebook for a month after making a critical comment on the Facebook page of Krystyna Pawłowicz, an MP for the ruling Prawo I Sprawiedliwość party [PiS].

Criminal proceedings have been terminated over an attack on anti-corruption journalists investigating the luxury cars driven by members of the SBU, Ukraine’s security service. The SBU is supposed to fight corruption, but first set guards onto the journalists, then resorted to threats to try to prevent their program being broadcast.

A popular children’s drama school that staged Ukrainian-language plays in Crimea is shutting down after what its founders describe

The 25 or so Crimean Cossacks who carried out a raid on Crimean Tatar homes on Dec 28 were accompanied by officers from Russia’s FSB and ‘Centre for Countering Extremism’.

Emir Huseyn Kuku, a member of the Contact Group on Human Rights, is under investigation in Russian-occupied Crimea over material posted on his Facebook page. He is accused of “extremist” publications and if convicted, would face a sentence of up to 5 years imprisonment.

Ukraine’s parliament has passed a law which prohibits state bodies and bodies of local self-government owning printed media. This is an important and belated step towards media independence since media owned by the authorities have traditionally placed enormous pressure on editorial teams to report events as suits those in power.

While pressure mounts on Ukraine to agree ‘elections’ in areas under Kremlin-backed militant control, the so-called ‘republics’ are making no pretence of planning to hold them in accordance with democratic standards

Iryna Mahdysh, Head of the Lviv Department of Culture, was forced to resign on Oct 7 after Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy made it clear he would not support her and ‘apologized’ for opinions she had expressed which offended many believers.

Civic activists have criticised Ukraine’s government and especially the Ministry of Information Policy over the failure to restore Ukrainian television and radio broadcasting in areas of Donbas freed from Kremlin-backed militant control