Fans visiting the 2018 World Cup this summer are to be ‘protected’ by Cossacks similar to those who helped Russian soldiers invade Ukrainian Crimea in 2014.  Hardly an accidental choice of thugs considering that the Kremlin has tried to protect itself against criticism by hiding Ukrainian political prisoners like Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko thousands of kilometres away from Moscow. 

The authoritative Memorial Human Rights Centre has declared 28-year-old Oleksandr Shumkov a political prisoner, finding both the circumstances by which the Ukrainian soldier came to be in Russia, and the charges against him extremely suspect.  There are strong grounds for believing that Shumkov was abducted from Ukrainian territory, and the charges that Russia has brought are truly surreal.  

Russia’s “most falsified Ukrainian show trial” has taken on yet another cynical twist with Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh each ordered to pay 500 thousand roubles ‘compensation’ for a death that neither man had anything to do with in a country that neither had set foot in

38-year-old Dzmitry Halko was arrested on 22 April on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border and is facing charges of ‘attacking a police officer’, with many assuming the arrest to be in fact linked with his role in Belarusian Partisan and other independent Belarusian publications.

Two Russian state-controlled channels have used shots from a 2016 feature film as part of ‘evidence’ to back Moscow’s claim that the chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma was staged

Mark Feygin, the well-known Russian lawyer representing imprisoned Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko, has been stripped of his lawyer’s status. Feygin asserts that the decision was politically-motivated and links it with his defence of Sushchenko

It is seven months since Russia’s FSB abducted Ukrainian student Pavlo Hryb from Belarus and since the 19-year-old, who has an extremely serious medical condition, saw the Ukrainian specialists treating him.  Russia has refused to allow Ukrainian doctors to examine him and is producing suspiciously ‘healthy’ test results to try to justify their refusal to provide him with proper medical care.

A year after Russia outlawed the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a first believer is on trial, facing a ten-year prison sentence and repressive measures are gaining pace.  These include armed searches and arrests, as well as the state theft of Jehovah’s Witness land and property.  It seems only a matter of time before Jehovah’s Witnesses join the ever-rising number of Ukrainians illegally imprisoned in occupied Crimea.

After concocting a ‘trial’ on truly surreal ‘spying’ charges to imprison Ukrainian Viktor Shur, Russia has since deployed any means to prevent him having contact with the Ukrainian consul and lawyers

Alexander Byvshev has been convicted of ‘incitement to enmity’ and sentenced to 330 hours community service for a poem entitled ‘On Ukraine’s Independence’.  

In a step back from the brink, a court in Russia has acquitted renowned historian Yuri Dmitriev of manifestly absurd charges for which the prosecutor had demanded a nine-year maximum security prison sentence. 

Verdict is due on 5 April in the trial of Yuri Dmitriev, a world-renowned Russian historian and head of the Karelia branch of the Memorial Society. The prosecution has demanded a 9-year sentence, despite even the expert assessments ordered by the court dismissing the charges

61-year-old Oleksiy Sizonovych from Krasnodon in the Luhansk oblast was, as feared, brutally tortured before ending up sentenced by a  Russian ‘court’ to 12 years’ imprisonment.  Neither the surreal nature of the charges against him, nor the use of torture are, unfortunately anything new, however this case does stand out because of Sizonovych’s age and the fact that he was first seized by Kremlin-backed militants from the self-proclaimed ‘Luhansk people’s republic’ [LPR] before being illegally abducted to Russia where the torture took place

Dozens of people have been arrested in Belarus as opposition activists attempted to hold an unsanctioned rally in the capital, Minsk

What will the OSCE say at their 19 March press conference in Moscow after agreeing to observe a ‘presidential election’ in which the main opposition candidate had been prevented from running, and which was being illegally held in occupied Crimea?.

There has been a significant fall in the number of deaths from cardio-vascular illness, tuberculosis and cancer in Russia.  That’s if you believe the Potemkin statistics, and don’t ask too many questions about the increase in deaths from a number of other illnesses, as well as from ‘unknown causes’ since one of Putin’s ‘May decrees’ back in 2012. 

Every Wednesday, Aleksei Nesterenko stands outside building No. 23 on Moscow’s Nikolskaya Street, in which his father was executed during the Terror, with a sign calling for it to be turned into a branch of the city’s GULAG museum

Russia’s Serbsky Institute has rejected any grounds for the charges against Yury Dmitriev, renowned historian and Head of the Karelia branch of the Memorial Society. Even an institute notorious for its use of punitive psychiatry in Soviet times was not willing to take part in the politically motivated attempt to imprison Dmitriev for up to 15 years and stated clearly that the historian “is not a paedophile”. 

Russian politician Boris Nemtsov was assassinated on February 27, 2015, in Moscow, Russia. Below his friend and fellow activist Vladimir Kara-Murza remembers the slain leader.

Russia’s Defence Ministry has taken steps to stop soldiers divulging inconvenient information about their deployment in eastern Ukraine and other countries, which Moscow claims to have no involvement in