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

Condemnation of Russia’s annexation of Crimea really can get you a lengthy term of imprisonment. A Russian Federation court has confirmed the 3-year sentence passed on Rafis Kashapov for material posted on the social network VKontakte in which he criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s annexation of Crimea

Putin’s tough but tightly scripted talk was meant to warn militants worldwide and reassure Russians that they are being protected, but his statement also contained several messages to the West -- some coded, some clear as a bell. The main message: Fight terror together, on our terms, or step aside.

As one of numerous examples, the judge has refused to call a ‘witness’ whose testimony is being used to undermine Nadiya Savchenko’s alibi, despite strong evidence that the man is a fraud

The authoritative Memorial Human Rights Centre considers Natalya Sharina, Director of the Ukrainian Literature Library a political prisoner and calls for her immediate release and for termination of the criminal charges against her. Her lawyers have also pointed to quite staggering irregularities in her arrest

Zarina Yunusova has been deported to Tajikistan, despite the investigation theoretically still underway in Russia into the death of her 5-month-old baby Umarali who died after the police took him away from his mother

Ukrainian Hennadiy Afanasiev is facing reprisals in a Russian prison for retracting testimony given under torture against Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko.

Russia’s Justice Ministry has accused the renowned Memorial Human Rights Centre of undermining the foundations of the Russian Federation’s constitutional order and calling for the overthrow of the regime.

Lawyers representing Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh have called on Ukraine’s Prime Minister and government to help ensure the men’s acquittal. Not through political pressure, but by simply providing the facts to refute testimony obtained through torture

Blaming the tragedy of Metrojet Flight 9268 on the West might work at home. But that will do little to change the dynamic that Moscow has set in motion with its Syria campaign.

“A huge blow for all those involved in remembering the victims of the Soviet Terror” is how the decision by Russia’s Justice Ministry to forcibly add the St Petersburg Memorial Research and Information Centre to its register of so-called ‘foreign agents’ has been described

Russia’s sudden change of policy towards Ukrainians in Russia, and likely flood of people forced to return just as winter is setting in is yet another reminder that Russia’s bombs may be falling elsewhere, but its hybrid war against Ukraine is not over.

Crimean political prisoner Gennady Afanasyev turns 25 in Russian prison on Nov 8, Oleksandr Kolchenko will be 26 on Nov 26. Show them & Moscow that they’re not forgotten!

Two Russian satirists have publicly demanded the immediate release of Darya Polyudova, jailed for 15 days for reposting their video clip, and pointed out that prosecution of anti-fascist activity “constitutes defence of fascism” and is punishable under both Russian and international law.