Oleksiy Chyrniy, a Crimean tried illegally in the same case as Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko has been brought from a Russian prison in Magadan and placed in the Moscow Serbsky Institute. The move could possibly be a step towards his release. There is still no sign that the Kremlin plans to free Sentsov and Kolchenko

Russia’s contempt for the law demonstrated in the trial of Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh who were illegally imprisoned, tortured and sentenced to over 20 years on trumped-up charges has now extended to the lawyers defending them. .

A Moscow court on June 8 rather unexpectedly released Pyotr Pavlensky from custody, after finding him guilty and fining him for damaging what was referred to as a ‘site of cultural heritage’, namely a door to the FSB building on Lubyanka Square

Serhiy Lytvynov, the Luhansk oblast resident abducted in Russia and tortured into confessing to war crimes that never happened, is demanding a formal apology for his unlawful prosecution. This he has the right to by law, and his lawyer Viktor Parshutkin plans to take the matter to court if Russia’s Prosecutor General fails to react.

Human rights activists warn that the significantly increased use of fines against peaceful protesters and the increasing use of the death penalty shows that the EU’s softening attitude to Alexander Lukashenko’s regime is misguided.

The Ukrainian Literature Library in Moscow was, it transpires, a hotbed of ‘extremism’. That’s according to Yevgeny Tarasov who was commissioned to carry out a ‘psycholinguistic’ assessment of books from the library as part of the criminal proceedings against Natalya Sharina, director of the library and recognized political prisoner

Russia’s Supreme Court has refused to even consider the cassation appeal lodged against the sentences passed on world-renowned filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko. The move was predictable, yet still profoundly disturbing given the lack of any grounds for the charges and “Stalinist” nature of the trial.

One day after releasing Nadiya Savchenko, Russia has sentenced two other Ukrainians to virtually identical terms of imprisonment on even more insane charges. The indictment flew in the face of historical fact, and both Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh can prove that they were in Ukraine at the time of the alleged crimes in Chechnya

One of the few monuments in Russia devoted to "the victims of political repressions during the 1930s." has a single line noting that fact, then dedicates 12 lines to honoring one particular victim of Stalin’s Terror: Valter Vand, the former head of the local branch of the NKVD

Sergei Gandlevsky was detained on May 23 by police officers at the Lubyanka Metro station in Moscow after he ripped down a portrait of the bloody dictator Joseph Stalin stuck on a wall

Russia has hidden Crimean political prisoners: renowned filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko; Gennady Afanasyev and Oleksiy Chirniy as far from their families, the media and western diplomats as could be achieved, which in Russia is far. Join Ukrainian civic organizations in proving that it’s not far enough!

It is Mykola Karpyuk’s birthday on May 21. Please write to him and to Stanislav Klykh! The two recognized political prisoners have been, as expected, convicted of supposed crimes in Chechnya despite all historical evidence and alibis

Best known for such protest actions as nailing his scrotum to Red Square or cutting off a piece of his ear, Russian political-protest artist Pyotr Pavlensky continues to put his body on the line

The verdict is imminent in the trial of two Ukrainians whom Russia has accused of killing Russian soldiers in Chechnya 20 years ago. If ‘confessions’ extracted through torture, evidence of alibis and of glaring historical inaccuracies have become standard in Russia’s trials of imprisoned Ukrainians, on this occasion there is one crucial difference.

Representatives of Russian and international NGOs are appalled by a new and alarming development in the campaign of pressure against Russian civil society, namely the possible first criminal proceedings linked with the law on NGOs as so-called ‘foreign agents’

The renowned Memorial Human Rights Centre has declared Ukrainian Serhiy Lytvynov a political prisoner and demanded his immediate release. It calls the cowherd from a Luhansk village near the border with Russia a victim of “the Russian-Ukrainian conflict”, who was used for propaganda purposes

Roman Roslovtsev has been jailed for 20 days for taking a walk in a mask depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, but could face a prison sentence of up to 5 years under new draconian anti-protest legislation. The brave young Russian is in fact challenging the authorities to prosecute to demonstrate the repressive insanity of the new law.

25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia looks set to pass a bill which will effectively lower the Iron Curtain again, and enable the authorities to prevent dissidents from leaving the country

Nadiya Savchenko has spent her 35th birthday alone after her mother arrived only to be refused a visit. This comes amid worrying indications that any exchange or extradition negotiations - for her and other Ukrainian prisoners - may have derailed

The judge in the trial of Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh has refused to include material confirming that neither man was in Chechnya 20 years ago when Russia claims they fought against Russian soldiers. The court has demonstrated the same disregard for Memorial Human Rights Centre analyses which show that the entire case against the two Ukrainians is an incompetent fabrication.