After months in which the Russian authorities have tried to conceal information about Russian soldiers fighting and dying in Ukraine, a Smolensk mother of seven is in detention facing charges of treason for trying to divulge this ‘state secret’.

It had seemed like a cynical joke back in October 2014 when Russia’s Investigative Committee first suggested that Nadiya Savchenko could be charged with ‘illegally crossing the border’. At the end of January with Savchenko in her seventh week of hunger strike and Russia ignoring international calls for her release, the new charge is immensely cynical, and anything but funny.

On the eve of a Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe [PACE] debate on whether to reinstate the Russian delegation’s credentials, Ukrainian MP and PACE delegate Nadiya Savchenko is on the 46th day of her hunger strike in Russian detention and a number of people in Moscow have been jailed for up to 45 days in connection with a peaceful protest demanding Savchenko’s release.

Less than 8 years after Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly encouraged ‘positive moves’ in the presentation of the country’s history, a Levada Centre opinion poll has found 52% of Russians viewing Joseph Stalin in a positive light, the highest rating for the bloody dictator since such questions were asked. Only 30% see him in a negative light.

How can Nadiya Savchenko, captured by Kremlin-backed militants in Ukraine, be in RUSSIAN detention? How can we believe that she will get a fair trial when the investigators and the court are ignoring an irrefutable alibi? Please help tweet these and other questions on Nadiya Savchenko’s FORTY FIFTH day on hunger strike.

The three-year sentence passed on Oleg Navalny has been widely seen as hostage-taking and an attempt to stifle his brother – leading political opposition figure Alexei Navalny. Memorial’s stand only strengthens this view.

The President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe [PACE] has asked Russia’s State Duma Speaker for help in securing Nadiya Savchenko’s urgent release. The imprisoned former pilot, Ukrainian MP and PACE delegate has been on hunger strike for 39 days and has rejected even her sister’s call for her to end it

The 75-year-old pensioner and activist is the first to fall foul of tough new legislation providing for stiff jail terms for those who repeatedly attend unsanctioned demonstrations.

The European Court of Human Rights has (again) found grave violations of the right to life and prohibition of torture in connection with the abduction of Chechens by “groups of armed men, most of them in camouflage gear, in areas under the full control of the Russian federal forces.

Well-known human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and 25-year-old Anastasia Baburova who was finishing journalism studies and working for Novaya Gazeta were gunned down in Moscow on January 19, 2009.

The Committee against Torture has recently expressed outrage over Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s threats (unfortunately implemented) to banish the relatives of alleged militants and destroy their homes. This is not the first clear link with a similar move made against an NGO reporting on Russian soldiers fighting and dying in Ukraine.

On Saturday one Kremlin-loyal TV channel reported that “Pilot Savchenko” had been moved to another prison for 24-hour medical care, after which several equally loyal media published a prison service denial. All media were silent, among other things, about mounting calls for Nadiya Savchenko’s immediate release.

Public concern over Russia’s imprisonment of former military pilot and Ukrainian MP, Nadiya Savchenko has had impact. Every one of us can help ensure that this case, and that of Oleg Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko and Yury Yatsenko are kept in the public eye until they are all released. Please share, tweet (#FreeSavchenko) and force Russia to comply with the Minsk Protocol and international law

Russian attempts to muffle information about Nadiya Savchenko’s capture by Kremlin-backed militants in Ukraine have not convinced MEPs who voted on Thursday to call for “an exchange of all prisoners, including Nadiya Savchenko”. A similar public call is eagerly awaited from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Please help ensure that the call is heeded!

On the 33nd day of Nadiya Savchenko’s hunger strike, four people only planning a protest outside the remand prison [SIZO] in Moscow were detained on Wednesday morning. The Russian authorities are trying to muffle protest and information about Nadiya Savchenko’s case. Please help ensure that they fail!

Veteran human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina condemns the move saying that even during the Soviet era under the dictatorship of Josef Stalin, “a son did not answer for his father and vice versa.” She calls the bill an “absurd” return to “collective responsibility, collective guilty, and collective punishment.”

Please sign and circulate this appeal to the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe asking that they demand the release of MP and PACE Delegate Nadiya Savchenkowho who has been on hunger strike in a Russian prison for over a month

Nadiya Savchenko has passed a letter via her lawyers to all those concerned for her fate in which she thanks everybody but rejects pleas for her to end her hunger strike. It is the only way she has to seek justice and she is adamant that she will not eat until the day of her return to Ukraine – or the last day of her life in Russian prison

From torturing puppies and calling on fellow neo-Nazis to kill down-and-outs and animals in St. Petersburg, Alexei Milchakov turned to killing Ukrainians in Donbas. Graphic pictures of his time fighting together with Kremlin-backed militants can be found on his VKontakte page – “Alexei Milchakov - Russia’s Pride and Glory”

It is excellent that the US State Department has called for Nadiya Savchenko’s release but it is clearly not enough. Please send the enclosed letter (or your own) stressing the need for their public response now to Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe President Anne Brasseur and PACE members (emails given!)