With the original ‘extremism’ and ‘incitement’ charges against Natalya Sharina, Director of the Ukrainian Literature Library in Moscow, proving just too sloppy and absurd, Russian investigators have come up with a new indictment

““I am here because I live in accordance with my conscience”, Ildar said in court on Thursday. Until you come out and state your position, you are an accomplice to fascism”. This draconian sentence may be because of Dadin’s support for Maidan, for Ukraine and Ukrainian prisoners held in Russia

While Ramzan Kadyrov’s open threats against peaceful opponents of the Kremlin get him Putin’s approval and continued leadership of Chechnya, Darya Polyudova is to serve 2 years for criticism of Russia’s war against Ukraine and an attempt to hold a peaceful ‘federalization march’

Meeting on March 25 in the Kremlin with Ramzan Kadyrov, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he had signed a decree appointing the current Chechen leader as acting republic head when his second term expires on April 5.

Even Russia’s Ombudsperson has called for Yury Soloshenko to be released, yet the 73-year-old Ukrainian pensioner sentenced by a Russian court to 6 years imprisonment on absurd ‘spying’ charges has now been moved from the prison medical unit to an ordinary cell

Russia has hopefully abandoned its illegal attempts to foist its citizenship on Crimean political prisoners Oleg Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko which have already been challenged at the European Court of Human Rights

There are at least three Ukrainian prisoners who have been deprived of their right to amnesty under Ukrainian law and taken against their will to Russia where they were effectively ‘re-convicted’ under Russian law. The real number of such prisoners could be much higher.

There have been further attempts to prevent defence witnesses appearing at the trial in Grozny of two Ukrainians accused of alleged offences in Chechnya 20 years ago. The court also refused to consider evidence proving that the men were nowhere near Chechnya at the time

Another trial directly linked with Russia’s undeclared war against Ukraine is continuing just around the corner from Russian Donetsk, where the ‘trial’ of Nadiya Savchenko reached its predetermined end on March 22. Serhiy Lytvynov has also been in Russian custody for almost two years and is now facing absurd charges. So absurd that they could do with publicity, and the defendant with moral support.

A legal trial that is run according to a prewritten script is no trial, and no justice. But by rejecting the appeal procedure, Nadiya Savchenko is making a grave mistake because it removes the possibility of applying to the European Court of Human Rights, and because her case has made the-farce-which-is-Russian-justice clear to the world and the appeal can only help to keep this in the public eye.

Russia’s use of the death of two journalists for its high-profile trial in Russia of Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian military pilot captured in Ukraine seems particularly cynical given the total silence over the deaths of other Russian journalists, including one who was almost certainly deliberately sent to his death.

If Amnesty International has understood how flawed the trial in Russia of Ukrainian Nadiya Savchenko is, it must surely understand how extraordinary its demand for only a ’retrial’ is. A retrial in which country? AI’s silence on the problem here is, unfortunately, not new.

Russian rights activists have called on colleagues, particularly in the Far East of Russia, to try to locate Crimean filmmaker and political prisoner Oleg Sentsov whose whereabouts have been unknown for over two weeks

Crimean civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko has been placed on the Russian prison ‘prophylactic register’ as a person “with a tendency for circulating extremist ideology”. Kolchenko’ attempts to get an explanation of what this ’extremism’ was about were not successful, although the officials clearly viewed disapproval of the current regime as being dead extremist

Yury Soloshenko, the 73-year-old Ukrainian pensioner, sentenced to 6 years in Russia on mystery ‘spying’ charges has cancer. This is the latest blow for the elderly Ukrainian who has not seen his grandchildren since August 2014

Ukraine has identified nearly 50 people it considers responsible for the "illegal detention and falsified trial" of Ukrainian military pilot Nadiya Savchenko and has urged the European Union to impose sanctions against them.

The attack on Igor Kalyapin, head of the Committee against Torture comes just a week after a savage attack on members of his committee and journalists. The chilling message it sends is particularly disastrous given the urgent need for publicity for Russia’s show trial in Grozny of Ukrainian political prisoners Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh

Being thrown into punishment cells or getting disciplinary penalties for nothing, and not getting medical treatment when needed – these are the sort of measures Russia is using to try to break the Crimean political prisoners

On March 14, the Moscow City Court rejected an appeal against the refusal to reclassify the murder of former Russian Prime Minister and fierce Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov as an attempt on the life of a government or public figure (a more serious charge). The need for an international investigation is clear and urgent.

Hearings scheduled for March 14 and 15 have been adjourned after family members arrived in Russia, almost certainly with compelling evidence that neither Mykola Karpyuk nor Stanislav Klykh was ever in Chechnya. As compelling as that provided by the Memorial Human Rights Centre that the impugned crimes never happened