32-year-old Ukrainian Valentin Vyhivsky has been sentenced to 11 years on spying charges classified as ‘top secret’. The trial was behind closed doors with a state-appointed lawyer, and there are very strong grounds for believing that the charges are trumped up

Just days after Russian riot police used violence against Russian citizens defending the Russian Constitution, President Putin has signed a law allowing Russia to breach that same document by flouting international court judgements when they don’t suit

The defence’s prediction that Russia’s ‘trial’ of Ukrainian MP and former military pilot Nadiya Savchenko would end before the end of December appears to have been premature

There is no evidence of terrorism against any of the four Ukrainian opponents of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and no doubt at all that all four men are illegally held and should be released under the Minsk Accords

Vladimir Ionov, the 76-year-old civic activist on trial in Moscow under Russia’s new anti-protest law is in a cardiology emergency care ward after experiencing chest pains

While the lack of any justice in Russia’s trial of Nadiya Savchenko is internationally recognized, the defence’s announcement that it will not appeal against a guilty verdict is worrying and possibly a dangerous mistake

Undeterred by the threat of prosecution for revealing ‘state secrets’, Russian human rights activists are demanding an official answer about the death of 159 Russian soldiers, and particularly note the sharp increase in unexplained deaths during the second half of 2014.

Ildar Dadin has been sentenced to 3 years, 1 more than demanded by the prosecutor. Dadin is well-known to Ukrainians for his active support for Euromaidan, which is likely to have contributed to this appalling sentence. It is also probably part of a mounting crackdown on peaceful opposition to the current regime.

With Russia’s economy shrinking by the month, it was hardly surprising that civic activists asked why already generous government spending on the TV network Russia Today is scheduled to increase by a staggering 30% in 2016. What they discovered or have been unable to find out is much more startling.

“Something tells” Vladimir Markin, official representative of Russia’s Investigative Committee, that the sentence passed on Ukrainian ex-pilot and MP will be ‘harsh’. This something (or somebody) obviously allowed him to flagrantly ignore fundamental principles of a fair trial and pre-empt the court in declaring Savchenko guilty

A Moscow court has upheld the house arrest until Dec 27 imposed on Natalya Sharina, Director of the Ukrainian Literature Library in Moscow. While Memorial considers Sharina a political prisoner, the pro-Kremlin NTV channel has come out with a 15-minute programme of unadulterated, if deranged, hate speech

Yury Soloshenko is not Russia’s only Ukrainian hostage, tried and convicted on absurd charges, but he is the only one who has been issued a death sentenc

Although a suspended sentence is meant, Vladimir Ionov would not comply with unlawful restriction. Therefore, if the court goes along with the prosecutor, Russia could soon reach a new low by imprisoning a dignified 75-year-old pensioner as first victim of a draconian law overtly aimed at crushing peaceful protest.

Russia’s parliament has moved closer to allowing the Constitutional Court to decide that international court rulings can be flouted if they are deemed to contradict Russia’s Constitution. Since the very law is in breach of this same Constitution, there seems every reason to suspect that the law will be invoked whenever Moscow does not wish to comply with international law.

Serhiy Litvinov, one of the Ukrainians held in Russian detention for well over a year could soon be free, after the lurid ‘war crimes’ Russia’s Investigative Committee had charged him with were proven to have never happened

The State Duma is rushing through a draft bill very obviously aimed at crushing the lorry drivers’ protests underway throughout the country. The bill likes vehicle processions to demonstrations, and tent camps to pickets.

Russia’s Prosecutor General has declared the renowned civic organization Open Society and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation ‘undesirable’ foreign NGOs on Russian territory.

Unable to touch Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemiliev, Russia is imposing inhuman conditions on his 33-year-old son Khaiser whom it continues to hold hostage, in an Astrakhan prison.

A week after allowing Kremlin-backed militant leader Igor Plotnytsky to testify in the trial of Nadiya Savchenko behind closed doors, the court has now refused to make his testimony public. It also rejected the defence’s application to have the prosecutors removed for threats of criminal proceedings against them

It is Oleksandr Kolchenko’s BIRTHDAY on Nov 26. It is bleak spending your birthday in Russian captivity facing a monstrous sentence on trumped up charges. Please send him birthday greetings and sign the petition demanding his release and that of Oleg Sentsov and Gennady Afanasyev!