Russia’s Investigative Committee and pro-Kremlin media have again collaborated over the detention of a Ukrainian MP and attempt to use Odessa 2 May ‘massacre propaganda’ to distract attention from the political murder of Putin’s main opponent Boris Nemtsov

The words below were first posted under a different title, prompted by the proven futility of appealing to humanity from Russia’s leaders. It should nonetheless be recorded that Vladimir Putin is ignoring his own Human Rights Council in risking Nadiya Savchenko’s life

Boris Nemtsov was murdered 2 weeks after he told a Russian newspaper that, like his mother, he was afraid that Vladimir Putin would have him killed. His was one of the few public voices of sanity in Russia, unafraid to speak out and even make a film about the war Putin has launched against Ukraine.

Another former Soviet political prisoner, Viktor Fainberg, has joined Mustafa Dzhemiliev in addressing Nadiya Savchenko as a Russian ‘court’ yet again refuses to release her from custody despite the real danger that she will die in detention. Meanwhile Russian writer Vladimir Voinovych, searingly truthful as ever, has addressed his letter to Vladimir Putin telling him not to appear in any western capital if he lets Savchenko die.

Nadiya Savchenko’s latest letter from Russian imprisonment coincides with a poignant appeal from Mustafa Dzhemiliev calling on her to stop her hunger strike using the same argument with which, when he was equally resolute in 1975, Andrei Sakharov saved his life

After 73 days on hunger strike, Nadiya Savchenko is reported to be experiencing kidney and gall bladder problems, Germany, while admitting that two German doctors examined Savchenko on Feb 15, is still saying nothing about what they found.

While Ukrainian doctors are refused permission to examine Nadiya Savchenko, on hunger strike for 69 days, Russia’s Penitentiary Service continues quoting anonymous ‘German doctors’ whose anonymity would seem to be part of a secret agreement between Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Pavel Shekhtman, the Russian political activist who fled to Ukraine in recent days, has been added to Russia’s ‘register of terrorists and extremists’. The list includes Oleg Sentsov, but not Russian fascist ideologue Alexander Dugin whose call to “kill all Ukrainians” was more public and no less extreme than the Facebook comment made by Shekhtman.

Russia claims that some anonymous German doctors have examined Nadiya Savchenko and found her condition “satisfactory”. There is no serious statement from the West regarding Moscow’s flagrant non-compliance with the Minsk II agreements in not releasing Savchenko, nor the Kremlin’s proxies’ breach of the entire agreement

A day after the Minsk II agreement was announced, Russia has claimed that Nadiya Savchenko is not unlawfully held, nor a hostage, and will not be released. This breaches the commitments made on Wednesday night, as well as flying in the face of numerous European and international resolutions demanding Savchenko’s release in accordance with the first Minsk agreement.

The Berlin Academy of Arts has reiterated calls for Russia to release Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov whom it is holding on fabricated ‘terrorism’ charges and says that any official contact with Russian arts bodies would be inconceivable until he is freed.

Nadiya Savchenko was gaunt, but unbroken as she spoke during Tuesday’s hearing in Moscow at which the judge ‘found no grounds’ for releasing the imprisoned Ukrainian MP who has been convicted of no crime and will almost certainly die before the next court hearing if left in Russian detention.

On the 59th day of Nadiya Savchenko’s indefinite hunger strike, prominent Russian writers, actors and others have initiated an appeal on Novaya Gazeta for her release from custody, warning that otherwise she will soon die.

Everybody knows who will decide whether Nadiya Savchenko, now on her 55th day of hunger strike, is left to die in Russian detention. The words today from the USA and PACE were blunt, but only words. Greater pressure, perhaps more punitive sanctions are obviously needed.

Three Russian activists, including a 75-year-old pensioner, could face 5-year prison sentences for taking part in peaceful protests following application of draconian new measures introduced in July 2014. Memorial has declared their prosecution to be unlawful and politically motivated, and warns that the latest legislative moves destroy freedom of assembly in Russia.

Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has been forced to acknowledge that imprisoned Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov is a Ukrainian national, but is still insisting that he also has Russian citizenship. It is attempting to use the lack of an agreement with Ukraine on dual nationality to insist that ‘de jure’ Sentsov should be treated as Russian

Svetlana Davydova’s lawyers believe her release may be because of the public outrage aroused by the arrest and detention on charges of ‘treason’ on behalf of Ukraine of the mother of 7 young children, the youngest of whom is only 2 months old.

Almost 9 months after their arrests Russian investigators have charged Oleg Sentsov, Ukrainian film director and Crimean political prisoner with possessing arms never found, and have denied fellow prisoner Oleksandr Kolchenko’s right to be a Ukrainian citizen.

The NGO Solders’ Mothers of St. Petersburg has reported a sharp increase in complaints from conscripts and their families who say that the young men are being forced to sign contracts purportedly in order to be sent ’for exercises’ to the Rostov oblast on the border with Donbas. Reports of such coercion are not new, but the increase coincides with the major escalation in overt Russian military involvement in eastern Ukraine over recent weeks

In the last 48 hours well over 20 thousand Russians have signed a petition calling for the release from custody of Svetlana Davydova who is breastfeeding her youngest child and facing charges of ’state treason’ by informing Ukraine of Russian soldiers probably deployed on Ukrainian territory