The Rostov regional court has rejected the appeal brought by Ukrainian political prisoner Serhiy Lytvynov against his 8.5-year sentence. The charges had been openly implausible and only laid after Russia was forced to withdraw the original ‘war crimes’ indictment, but unfortunately the ruling on August 9 was anticipated

Ukraine has repeated its request for the extradition of Ukrainian political prisoners Stanislav Klykh and Mykola Karpyuk, amid increasing concern for Klykh’s psychological state after torture in Russian captivity and as Klykh faces cynical new charges for supposed ’contempt of court’.

Please write to Valentin Vyhivsky who is turning 33 on August 3 in Russian captivity, after being abducted from Crimea in September 2014, held incommunicado, tortured and twice subjected to mock executions

Grotesquely flawed trials and proof of total innocence are not enough for Russian President Vladimir Putin, it seems. He needs ‘grounds’ why he should release Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko and other Ukrainian political prisoners.

Punitive psychiatry appears to have returned in Russia with a recognized political prisoner being forcibly held in a psychiatric hospital. 36-year-old Alexei Moroshkin has been receiving psychiatric ‘treatment’ against his and his family’s wishes since December 2015, and a Chelyabinsk court has just extended his confinement for a further 6 months

A second Russian court has found Andrei Bubeev guilty of ’calls to violate Russia’s territorial integrity for reposting an article entitled “Crimea is Ukraine”, as well as of ’extremism’ for reposting a toothpaste tube with the caption “Squeeze Russia out of yourself”

Bloody Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin has not been relegated to the past in today’s Russia. Not if you judge by the offices of law enforcement officers and investigators, Ivan Pavlov, a human rights lawyer writes. He has to visit a lot of such offices, and says that one in two will have the tyrant’s portrait.

"How many divisions does the pope have?" Josef Stalin was meant to have asked contemptuously. Today the question could as easily be posed: How many companies does the Kremlin have?

Russia has criminalized not denouncing people, with terrifying implications for the many politically motivated and / or fabricated criminal cases against Crimean Muslims, Crimean Tatars and any Ukrainians opposing Russia’s occupation of Crimea.

Mike Downey, a film producer and the deputy head of the European Film Academy, spoke with RFE/RL about why Sentsov’s case remains important to people across Europe

It will soon be 2 years since Ukrainian Valentin Vyhivsky was abducted and taken by force to Moscow. After holding him incommunicado for many months, Russia first claimed that he had been collecting ‘commercial information’, then that he was ‘spying’. There was no need for plausibility or even consistency given the total secrecy and refusal to allow even the Ukrainian consul to be at the trial.

Oleg Sentsov, the Ukrainian filmmaker held for over two years in Russian prisons, is turning 40 on July 13. The Kremlin has sent him and Oleksandr Kolchenko as far from Moscow and publicity as possible. It is vital we demonstrate that no distance will be enough and make greetings to the men and demands for their release resound

The verdict is in: accusing someone on Russian state television of being a Western spy with no evidence to substantiate the claim does not constitute slander -- at least if that someone is opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.

Russia’s FSB have carried out a search at the offices of the independent radio station Ekho Moskvy and removed electronic correspondence between the station and political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky. Several members of staff have also been summoned for interrogation

Veteran Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemiliev is surely speaking for all Ukrainians in addressing birthday greetings to Russian Tatar activist Rafis Kashapov and his twin brother Nafis on their 58th birthday. For all, in fact, appalled by the monstrous sentence passed on Rafis Kashapov for social network posts criticizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine.

37-year-old Vladimir Luzgin has been convicted and fined 200 thousand roubles for reposting a text which correctly states that the Soviet Union, in collaboration with Hitler, invaded Poland in 1939. A Russian prosecutor claimed and a court in Perm accepted that Luzgin was guilty of posting “knowingly false information”.

Courageous believers have held a third picket in Moscow affirming that denunciations and prosecutions for ‘offending believers’ feelings’ run counter to Christ’s teachings. Their protest came as Russia’s upper house of parliament passed a law which criminalizes failure to denounce others and makes it possible to prosecute 14-year-olds for taking part in demonstrations.

If convicted of ‘maliciously evading’ compliance with the demands of Russia’s law on ‘foreign agents’, human rights activist Valentina Cherevatenko could face up to 2 years’ imprisonment. Her organization’s problems began after initiating a project aimed at monitoring implementation of the Minsk Agreement on the war in Donbas.

Oleksandr Kolchenko, the Ukrainian civic activist tried together with filmmaker Oleg Sentsov on involvement in a non-existent ‘terrorist plot’, has been refused a visit from the Ukrainian consul with the prison authorities claiming that Kolchenko is a Russian national. Most ominously, he is being put under pressure to sign a Russian passport they have already prepared.

Two and a half years after Ukraine’s Maidan forced the withdrawal of a law introducing sweeping dictatorial powers, Russia has passed a law which seems aimed at terrorizing and silencing civil society with direct impact for Ukrainians in Crimea under Russian occupation.