Mystery Ukrainian Alexander Malofeyev has been sentenced to 24.5 years maximum security prison, after ‘confessing’ and claiming that he fought in Chechnya together with Russia’s Ukrainian prisoners Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh, as well as Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk and other prominent Ukrainians.

The hearing on Sept 29 in the trial of Nadiya Savchenko confirmed the degree to which prosecution and the court are working in unison  and indicated the courage shown by Nadiya Savchenko in captivity which has probably resulted in this universally condemned judicial travesty

The explanation provided by Russia’s Ambassador to Venezuela for why the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept 17 was not an invasion is disturbingly similar to the arguments presented by Vladimir Putin as justification for Russia’s annexation of Crimea 

Lev Shlosberg, a lawmaker in Russia’s north-western Pskov region known for his relentless criticism of the Kremlin has been expelled from the local legislature, a move denounced by the opposition as politically motivated.

Nadiya Savchenko is probably facing a 25-year sentence at the end of the ‘court trial’ which began on Sept 22., but the customary “if she is found guilty” seems entirely out of place. Nobody seriously believes that Leonid Stepanenko and two other judges, seemingly from the Russian Donetsk City Court, are any more than actors in the spectacle unfolding

The trial has begun in Moscow of Vladimir Ionov who is facing criminal charges over supposed administrative infringements during peaceful protests. The 75-year-old civic activist is the first person to be tried under a new article of the Criminal Code which envisages up to 5-year sentences if a court has issued three rulings on administrative offences within 180 days.

Gennady Kravtsov, a 36-year-old radio engineer, has been convicted of state treason and sentenced to 14 years maximum security prison because of a letter he wrote in search of a job having waited the requisite five years after leaving his post his post in military intelligence

Thousands of Russian opposition activists and their supporters rallied in Moscow, in the wake of regional elections that saw the ruling party trouncing opposition candidates in voting criticized as rigged

Russia’s endorsement of “the right of nations to self-determination” begins beyond its borders, including those that it has illegally redrawn. A congress of separatists from around the world is due to take place in Moscow on Sept 20, with participants’ travel costs paid for by the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia whose only disclosed income is from a Kremlin-patronized fund.

Among the applications from Nadiya Savchenko’s defence rejected on Tuesday was for one Kremlin-backed militant leader to be called for questioning over the total discrepancy between his testimony and that of another leader and the prosecution.

A Russian court has sentenced 56-year-old Rafis Kashapov to three years imprisonment over social network posts criticizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine. It is the first trial on charges under a new article widely believed to be aimed at silencing opposition to, among other things, Russia’s occupation of Crimea (updated)

The 10 thousand rouble fine on Andrei Margulev for holding vigil at the place where Boris Nemtstov was gunned down was imposed by the same Moscow court that four days earlier fined two religious activists 1 (one) thousand roubles for destroying an art exhibition which they claimed offend Russian Orthodox believers.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has been forced to abandon war crimes charges brought against one Ukrainian and based entirely on ‘confessions’ obtained through torture. Serhiy Litvinov’s lawyer Viktor Parshutkin was able to prove that the alleged victims and addresses where the crimes were supposed to have taken place did not exist

Russia’s most prominent human rights defenders, writers & others call the trial of Sentsov and Kolchenko ideologically motivated state terror aimed at suppressing any peaceful resistance to Russia’s occupation of Crimea

6 months after Putin’s fiercest critic Boris Nemtsov was gunned down near the Kremlin, the investigation is reportedly close to concluding that nobody ordered Nemtsov’s killing and that it was not over his opposition activities in Russia, but the result of his comments after the murder of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in January PLEASE ENDORSE APPEAL FOR REAL INVESTIGATION!.

Pavel Kanygin, a special correspondent with the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, has posted videos of two visits to the home of Aleksandrov, whose capture added to mounting evidence of a direct Russian role in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Russian Investigative Committee claims that Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk once fought against Russia in Chechnya aroused hilarity and some excellent flights of Photoshop fantasy but ignored one chilling detail. The allegations are based on ‘testimony’ obtained from two Ukrainians facing 15-year sentences although they, like Yatsenyuk, never set foot in Chechnya

A Moscow court is due to hear a defamation suit brought by one of the lawyers representing Ukrainian film director and recognized political prisoner Oleg Sentsov against mainstream Russian television channels

The Memorial Human Rights Centre (Moscow) must pay 600,000 roubles for refusing to apply the label ‘foreign agent’ to materials that were placed on the website of another organization

An article on Russian state-funded Sputnik International asserts that criticism of the Soviet past, including Joseph Stalin, is part of a US and NATO attack on “today’s Russia and its leadership that is unwilling to bow before the West.”