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

Both Sobytiya Kryma and the Centre for Journalist Investigations are independent and present both an alternative view of events in Crimea, and information that will not be found in the mainstream Crimean media - about human rights infringements, for example.

The West has done next to nothing to counter Russia’s state-controlled propaganda machine with its vicious warmongering and lies. Zhanna Nemtsova’s call for sanctions against those whose incitement to hatred and violence led to her father’s murder outside the Kremlin were heard, reported - and ignored.

Ukraine’s fiasco over its seemingly arbitrary sanctions on journalists is especially frustrating as it has effectively blurred legitimate objections to the role of media workers, mostly from Russia, whose coverage of events in Donbas, for example, has nothing to do with journalism.

Andriy Vyshnevsky, Director of the Justice Ministry’s Legal Aid Coordination Centre has been stripped of his licence to practise as an attorney following critical comments about Ukraine’s National Bar Association. There is particular irony in the fact that his criticism was given - and not well received - during a conference on judicial reform.

Remembrance gatherings on Sept 16, the 15th anniversary of Georgy Gongadze’s murder were held in Kyiv and other cities, with the current government coming under fire not only for the ongoing failure to punish Gongadze’s killers, but for the huge number of other attacks that go unpunished.

Ukraine has taken an urgently needed step towards ensuring that the public know who is behind the news they receive. With media transparency increasingly understood as having impact on national security, it is no accident that the law now passed prohibits residents of an aggressor state from owning corporate rights in Ukrainian broadcasting companies.

Sevastopol blogger Iryna Gorelikova has reported being hauled in for questioning after she shared a link on Facebook about Mustafa Dzhemiliev, the veteran Crimean Tatar leader and Ukrainian MP whom Russia has banned from his homeland.

In a move of benefit chiefly for Russian propaganda, Ukraine’s Fiscal Service has barred 38 Russian books – by Russian fascist ideologue Alexander Dugin, Edward Limonov, Sergei Glazyev and others - from being imported into Ukraine

Sevastopol marathon swimmer Oleg Sofianyk has decided to stay in mainland Ukraine after being summoned for questioning about another Ukrainian, Yury Ilchenko who is in detention, seemingly for an article opposing Russia’s occupation of Crimea.

Mustafa Yagyaev, the imam of a village mosque in Crimea, has received a 2 year suspended sentence and been prohibited from “any activity involving the circulation of information” after three colleagues claimed that he had made comments about Crimea returning to Ukraine, Russians, etc

"Journalists and journalism are under attack in Crimea now. This has to stop. When critical journalists are silenced to the last one it will mark the end of independent journalism in the region, and my fellow Crimeans will be left face-to-face with lawlessness and Russian propaganda. The world must not let this happen."

Yet another anonymous Crimean is facing criminal charges on unclear charges in Russian-occupied Crimea, this time a teenager

Amid an ever-growing trend of Russian internet censorship, PEN American Center and PEN Ukraine are gravely concerned by reports that Facebook has removed content and deactivated or suspended accounts of Ukrainian and Russian users critical of the Putin regime.

Two and a half months after ATR. the unique Crimean Tatar TV channel, and most Crimean Tatar media were silenced in Russian-occupied Crimea, ATR and children’s channel Lale have begun broadcasting from Kyiv. The response from the occupation authorities has been predictably hostile

Pavel Kanygin had a gun put to his head and was beaten a day after he reported the first serious protest against the militants’ shelling in Donetsk, and the same day that he and 8 others were reported to have challenged Putin’s decree classifying information about military losses in Ukraine

A new bill proposing criminal liability for something fuzzily referred to as “information support for terrorism” has been roundly condemned by the Stop Censorship movement and Ukraine’s most prominent media organizations

Kremlin-backed militants in Donbas have taken another step to prevent Ukrainians in militant-controlled areas from learning about Russian military involvement in the war in Donbas, criminal dealings by rival militant gangs, etc. The blanket censorship coincides with their demand for ‘special status’ as integral parts of Ukraine