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!

A military panel of Russia’s Supreme Court has taken just hours to ‘examine’ and reject the appeal lodged by Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko. Sentsov is facing a 20-year sentence, Kolchenko 10 years after a trial described as “absolutely Stalinist” and “ideologically motivated state terror”

Vera Savchenko has reported that Russian customs officials removed 24 copies of Nadiya Savchenko’s book ‘It’s a Strong Name, Hope’. The officials initially reacted that the books were ‘extremist’ literature, then opted for ‘suspicious’.

Russia’s Supreme Court is due on Nov 24 to hear appeals against the 20- and 10-year sentences passed on two Ukrainians – renowned filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko. The same court has already refused to reconsider the 7-year sentence passed on Gennady Afanasyev, the third of four Ukrainians who opposed Russia’s annexation of Crimea and were tried as ‘terrorists’

Having obtained harrowing confessions from Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh of horrific acts of torture and murder of Russian soldiers, Russia’s investigators did not charge them with these crimes. Not because they forgot them. Quite the contrary: the alleged crimes are described in horrific detail numerous times in the indictment, will be read out in court, yet do not form part of the charges.

Memorial does the work that Russia’s post-Soviet authorities should, but do not, do. I’m talking about the preservation of the memory of the real, tragic history of the Soviet period, about the millions of people who were shot to death and suffered in the camps, those who died as a result of the repressions and injustice

Militant leader Igor Plotnytsky has given testimony in Russia’s imitation trial of Nadiya Savchenko, but what he said was allowed to be top secret, and the defence have been threatened with criminal prosecution for tweeting a few details and photo