Danis Safargali has been called "a victim of a persecution campaign against opposition activists of the Tatar national movement...that has been launched since 2014."

While the precise cause of his death remains unclear, Ivan Skripnichenko’s passing -- first revealed to the public by a fellow activist late on August 24 -- has made him a tragic symbol of what Kremlin critics call a state-sanctioned campaign of violence and harassment against the caretakers of the Nemtsov memorial.

PEN America has issued a statement condemning the arrest on August 22 of Russian theatre director Kirill Serebrennikov and calls it part of a concerted campaign to silence dissenting voices in the arts in Russia

Oleksiy Chyrniy, one of the three opponents of Russia’s occupation of Crimea arrested with renowned filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, has been moved to a much harsher prison regime and is being denied visits from the Ukrainian consul, making it next to impossible to monitor his treatment

In yet another move in Russia to silence those telling the truth about the Great Terror and Stalinism in general, Dmitry Kozlov has been fined for erecting a Last Address plaque, part of the civic initiative honouring the memory of individual victims of the Terror. 

While 19-year-old Artur Panov does not deny at least some of the charges, he was just 16 when arrested and there are grounds for doubting the seriousness of the grandiose plans he appears to have discussed. 35-year-old Maxim Smyshlyaev, who received a 10-year sentence, has long been recognized as a political prisoner by the renowned Memorial Human Rights Centre.

Two members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot are facing administrative prosecution for a totally peaceful protest calling for the release of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov whom Russia arrested shortly after its invasion and annexation of Crimea.

There are very many unanswered questions as to how Russian opposition activist Vladimir Yegorov came to be taken by Ukrainian officials to the border and told he had been refused asylum in Ukraine.  The questions need answers since Yegorov has now been remanded in custody back in Russia, almost certainly for his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin and opposition activities.

Everything about the arrest, ongoing detention and ’trial’ of Yury Dmitriev, the Russian historian who has dedicated his life to ensuring that the truth about the crimes committed is known and the victims honoured is of concern, and the Memorial Human Rights Centre is not alone in seeing the prosecution as politically motivated

Russia’s FSB may well consider the ‘trial’ and 11-year prison sentence passed on Ukrainian aviation enthusiast Valentyn Vyhivsky to be one of their successes. Other Ukrainians have also provided ‘confessions’ while held for long periods incommunicado, but they have later had real lawyers and a chance to expose the lack of any evidence and use of torture.

A military court in Rostov has sentenced 61-year-old Oleksiy Sizonovych to 12 years in a maximum security prison on charges of planning acts of sabotage and terrorist both in Russia and in the militant-controlled Luhansk oblast of Ukraine

Lawyers for two Kyrgyz-born brothers charged in a deadly bombing on a St. Petersburg subway train in April have asked Russian authorities to investigate their clients’ claims that they were tortured at a "secret jail" outside Moscow.

Add another name to the list of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s associates who have reportedly become billionaires under his reign

New sanctions legislation with teeth is direly needed—not least because of the dozens of Ukrainian political prisoners who continue to languish in Russian prisons.

Anti-corruption activist Viktoria Lobova was jailed for three days in Vladimir on July 14 for reposting a picture where Russian President Vladimir Putin is in a Nazi uniform, and is likened to Adolf Hitler.

Oleg Sentsov’s trial and 20-year sentence in August 2015 were condemned as ‘ideologically motivated terror”, and his release has been demanded from the outset by all international organizations and democratic states. The Kremlin’s repeated claim that Sentsov was given a fair trial and justly convicted of ‘terrorism’ are in stark conflict with the facts.

After invading Crimea and faking a ‘referendum’ on ‘joining’ Russia, Moscow is applying strictly selective Russification in its persecution of Ukrainians

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has agreed to a ‘debate’ with Igor Girkin, the ex-Russian military intelligence officer who played a crucial role in Russia’s invasion of Crimea and military aggression in Donbas

The fact that former Yukos employee Aleksei Pichugin is serving life imprisonment without lawful grounds has now been shown by two judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.

Nothing should surprise us when Putin has warned against ‘excessively demonizing’ a dictator responsible for the death of millions, and that same dictator is named ‘the most outstanding figure of all ages by a terrifying 38% of Russians polled. Yet the news that the Moscow Law Academy has erected a monument to this mass murderer is still profoundly shocking. .