The final of the Russian military-sport game ‘Victory’ has taken place for the first time in Russian-occupied Crimea, with teenagers from 14-16 competing in shooting, as well as dismantling and putting together Kalashnikov rifles. The event is aimed at, among other things, ensuring a “solid basis of patriotic awareness” and an “understanding of Russia’s strength and resilience”.

Interfax reports that Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office is to check whether the Baltic Republics declared independence legally. This comes just days after the same illustrious body informed that the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 had been ‘unconstitutional’ and therefore illegitimate.

As well as seeking a Russian NGO’s prosecution for warning Russian tourists that Crimea is Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation, Russia’s Prosecutor General has asserted that the 1954 decision which formally made Crimea part of Ukraine was illegitimate. This is not the first such attempt to rewrite geopolitical history

Russia’s Foreign Ministry is again aware of ‘pogroms’ that experienced researchers of anti-Semitism and xenophobia in Ukraine and human rights groups would seem to have not noticed. Its keeping the details to itself however

With so many renowned film directors calling for the release of their Ukrainian colleague held prisoner in Russia, Nikita Mikhailkov’s shameful silence over the ongoing detention of Oleg Sentsov has gone unnoticed. Mikhailkov had, as reported, appeared to promise almost exactly a year ago to intercede on Sentsov’s behalf. He did nothing.

Russia saw its biggest loss of democracy in a decade last year, while it and other authoritarian states took aggressive action to block efforts to form new democracies elsewhere in Europe and Eurasia, a new report by Freedom House finds.

‘Public Control’, a Russian consumer rights society, has aroused anger in Moscow and could face prosecution over its entirely accurate description of Crimea as ‘occupied territory’ and its warnings of the legal ramifications of any trips undertaken without Ukrainian permission.

Ukrainian historian Stanislav Klykh is in Russian detention charged with fighting against Russia in Chechnya. It can be easily proven that Klykh was never in Chechnya, which may well explain why Russia has concealed his whereabouts over the last 10 months and is refusing to allow lawyers chosen by the family to see him.

3 men in detention since March 2014 for raising a German flag on an FSB building in Kaliningrad as protest at Russia’s annexation of Crimea have been convicted of ‘hooliganism’ but sentenced only to the period already spent in detention. The 92-year-old veteran whom the FSB claimed had been ‘insulted’ turned out to not know that the flag was not that of the Third Reich

It was exactly a year ago, on June 17, 2014, that the Ukrainian pilot was taken prisoner by Kremlin-backed militants who Russia has constantly claimed are Ukrainian separatists fighting a ‘civil war’ in Ukraine. Those militants promptly took her by force to Russia where Russian ’investigators’ took over

Alexander Byvshev, the Russian poet dismissed from his teaching job and on trial for a poem against Russia’s annexation of Crimea, has now been added to Russia’s List of Terrorists and Extremists. Russian Wikipedia has also demonstrated the same contempt for the presumption of innocence and deleted their entry on the poet.

Nine Russian human rights activists and journalists have lodged an appeal with the Russian Supreme Court prompted by President Vladimir Putin’s decree classifying information about military losses in peacetime as ‘state secret’

Allegations have once again been made of strong links between the Kremlin and the neo-Nazi organization BORN [Militant Organization of Russian Nationalists], responsible for at least 10 killings, including that of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, with the links having direct implications for Russia’s undeclared war in eastern Ukraine

The 5-year sentence for an offence committed in Ukraine by a Ukrainian national and one on which a Ukrainian court has already passed sentence is totally illegal, and, defence lawyer Nikolai Polozov says, it will be appealed.

Nadiya Savchenko’s detention has been extended to Sept. 30, 15 months since her official remand in Russian custody. Any extension for so long needed to be and was not confirmed by the head of the Investigative Committee, but this was only one of the infringements which the judge chose to ignore.

Russia’s Investigative Committee says it has launched a criminal inquiry against Ilya Ponomaryov, the lone State Duma representative to vote against the 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine

The Russian trial of renowned film director Oleg Sentsov and civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko whose arrests are widely viewed as politically motivated could begin within weeks. Both are facing sentences of 17-20 years effectively for refusing to ‘confess’ to non-existent acts of terrorism

A new Russian film on the 1968 events in Czechoslovakia has revived accusations that the Kremlin is twisting historical facts to forge a new ideology and justify some of its most controversial actions and policies.

A jury in Krasnodar has unanimously acquitted Khaiser Dzhemiliev of murder and found the son of veteran Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemiliev guilty only of illegal possession of a weapon and of manslaughter. As his lawyer, Nikolai Polozov notes, the jury’s verdict is virtually identical to that of the Ukrainian court which Russia’s prosecutor and court had chosen to ignore

On May 26, one of the country’s biggest scientific benefactors, 82-year-old Dmitry Zimin, canceled millions of dollars in funding after the Russian government branded his Dynasty Foundation a "foreign agent," a label commonly used to target organizations seen as unfriendly to the government