The United States has slapped sanctions on five additional Russians for alleged human rights violations, including powerful senior law-enforcement official Aleksandr Bastrykin and lawmaker Andrei Lugovoi, who has been accused in Britain in the poisoning of Kremlin critic Aleksandr Litvinenko.

In the latest move aimed at crushing critical voices and independent NGOs in Russia, the renowned Sova Centre has been labelled a ‘foreign agent’. The reason almost certainly lies in the Centre’s monitoring and criticism of Russia’s ever-increasing misuse of dangerously broad ‘anti-extremism’ legislation.

Yury Dmitriev has devoted the last 30 years to ensuring that the history of the Soviet Terror is known, and the unmarked graves of countless victims honoured. Judging by the harassment preceding his arrest, this has made him enemies, and there are strong grounds for concern over the criminal proceedings initiated against him.

The Russian investigators claim that the clip which Roman Grishin reposted - a biting attack on Russia’s excuses for its aggression against Ukraine - contains utterances that fall under Russia’s anti-extremism law. It contains plenty that would not please Russian President Vladimir Putin, but none that justify ‘extremism’ charges

Two Krasnodar activists have been jailed for 15 days for their alleged involvement in the appearance of a wooden crucifix on the monument to Felix Dzherzhinsky, the first head of the Cheka, or dreaded Soviet secret police

Andrei Bubeev, the Russian blogger serving a 2.5 year sentence for social network reposts of an article entitled “Crimea is Ukraine” and a picture of a toothpaste tube with the caption “Squeeze Russia out of yourself” is being moved to a prison with harsher conditions. The reasons appear to include ‘bad influence on other prisoners’, with this based on him encouraging them to read.

Vitaly Pop was just 16 when he died of horrific injuries inflicted by Russian prison staff following his arrival in a ‘corrective prison’ for young offenders. He was probably picked out for ‘special treatment’ because of his Ukrainian accent, and his torturers used nationality-linked words of abuse while beating him

A court in Moscow has flouted Russia’s own Constitutional Court and refused to cancel the inclusion of the renowned International Memorial Society from Russia’s notorious list of so-called ‘foreign agents’

Dmitry Utkin, otherwise known as ’Wagner’, whose highly trained Russian fighters are known to have been involved in Russia’s invasion of Crimea, in the conflict in Donbas and in Syria, was one of Putin’s guests at a Kremlin reception to mark ’Heroes of the Fatherland Day’

At least 15 people were detained in Moscow on Dec 12, Russia’s Constitution Day, for a peaceful action reading the Constitution aloud, and one activist in St Petersburg is spending the night in police custody for a single person picket which even under Russia’s current unconstitutional legislation is legal.

Russia’s Migration Service is consistently denying Syrians asylum, claiming that there is nothing to stop them returning to their country. The officials cite Russia’s Foreign Ministry and Defence Ministry, ignoring both Russia’s direct involvement in making large parts of Syria unsafe for civilians and reports from the UN and numerous NGOs

Oksana Sevastidi was sentenced to 7 years for a text message from 2008 and she is just one of at least 10 people similarly charged and sentenced by a secret court in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region.

Two months after Roman Sushchenko, Paris correspondent for Ukraine’s information agency Ukrinform was seized in Moscow , his son Maxim has made a brief and moving appeal for his father’s release

President Putin’s claim that Russia is a law-based country and that Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years for ‘terrorism’ clash with the findings of the International Criminal Court on Russia’s invasion and ongoing occupation of Crimea

Since recounting how he had been subjected to torture, Russian civic activist and prisoner of conscience Ildar Dadin has been threatened with criminal proceedings, a ‘defamation’ suit and has been placed in solitary confinement for 6 months

Ukrainian civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko is turning 27 on Nov 26, his third birthday in Russian captivity. The need for letters of support and also public attention is now even more urgent with Russia having just prevented real human rights activists from visiting him, Oleg Sentsov and other Ukrainian political prisoners.

Khaiser will have been forced to serve every day of a sentence Russia had no right to pass, but at least the decision to hold him under close surveillance for three years has been cancelled

The sentence passed on Nov 21 adds only a month to Russia’s 20-year sentence against Ukrainian Stanislav Klykh, but its cynicism is of extraordinary brutality

How large a role the Kremlin played in trying to crush Ukraine’s Euromaidan protests still needs to be established, but Russia’s politically motivated prosecutions of Ukrainians who took part in Maidan certainly suggest an element of revenge. On this 3rd anniversary of Euromaidan, spare a thought for the Maidan activists now serving grotesque sentences in Russia.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has announced criminal proceedings against a Russian national alleged to have fought on Ukraine’s side in the military conflict in Donbas. There have been no criminal cases brought against those paid to fight on the side of the Kremlin-backed militants