One of the four opponents of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea who was accused, together with renowned film director Oleg Sentsov and left-wing activist Oleksandr Kolchenko, of a Right Sector ‘terrorist plot’ has been sentenced to 7 years imprisonment

“I will continue my hunger strike until I return to Ukraine. This is not suicide but the only method of fighting available to me”, the Ukrainian MP and former military pilot captured by Kremlin-backed militants in Ukraine but held in detention in Russia has stated.

Roskomnadzor, the Russian body effectively responsible for censorship, has threatened to block the Ukrainian website GORDON if it does not remove information about protests planned in Moscow on Jan 15 in support of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his brother. Most worryingly, Facebook has already given in to similar demands

The most hard-hitting questions at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press conference on Thursday came from Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsymbalyuk. Respect due to one courageous journalist whose initiative was frustratingly not followed up by Russian colleagues despite Putin’s evasive and dishonest response.

Russia is trying to claim that Oleg Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko are ‘automatically’ Russian since they didn’t formally appear at the Crimean offices during the requisite timeframe which ended after the men had been arrested.

Questions at the Russian president’s press conference on Thursday should ask why the Ukrainian MP and former military pilot has been forced to go on hunger strike in protest at the failure to treat a bad ear infection, how she came to be in Russian detention after being abducted in Ukraine by Kremlin-backed militants, and much more

The offices of the Committee to Prevent Torture have been destroyed by fire just days after its head Igor Kalyapin placed in question Kadyrov’s orders to deport the families of supposedly known insurgents from Chechnya and their homes burned to the ground.

On the same day that Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada passed a resolution calling on Russia to release Ukrainian MP and former military pilot Nadiya Savchenko and all other prisoners, Savchenko’s lawyers have expressed concern over her state of health in Russian detention.

The latest Levada Centre survey of Russian public opinion shows that Russians’ attitude to the USA, EU and to Ukraine has plummeted over the years that Vladimir Putin has openly, or indirectly, ruled the country.

While Russia’s defence ministry continues – “for obvious reasons” – to keep the lists of deaths secret and denies that the soldiers died in Ukraine, pro-Kremlin media are planning programmes to convince young conscripts of the glory of defending their ‘Motherland’

73-year-old Ludmila Bogatenkova was remanded in custody on spurious fraud charges after active and public efforts to find out how Russian conscripts and other soldiers are being sent to fight in Ukraine, and about their deaths. A month after she was released and immediately hospitalized, the prosecutor has admitted finding no evidence of fraud by the rights activist

According to the latest Levada Centre opinion poll, 55% of Russians expect renewed military action in Donbas, but 58% are against Russian forces being deployed. Most blame EuroMaidan for the current crisis in Ukraine

Civic activists and friends of Sasha [Oleksandr Kolchenko] met on Wednesday to mark his 25th birthday and show moral support for the Crimean activist and opponent of Russian occupation held in detention in Moscow.

Oleksandr [Sasha] Kolchenko is about to turn 25 in Russian detention. Please help pass birthday greetings to him and a clear message to one of Russia’s Crimean political prisoners - and to Moscow – that he is not forgotten!

A deputy from the St Petersburg Legislative Assembly has condemned the political case against Nadiya Savchenko and said that it compounds total distrust in the Russian law enforcement system.

Russia’s Justice Ministry has begun an unscheduled ‘check’ of one of Russia’s most well-known organizations, ‘For Human Rights’

The Russian authorities are still citing the state secrets act or medical confidentiality to avoid telling the truth about soldiers, some conscripts, killed in fighting in Ukraine. They have even tried to pretend that the Pskov paratroopers killed are still alive, with fake VKontakte social network entries

Around 80% of Russians believe that Ukraine on the one hand, and the USA and western countries on the other are waging an information war against Russia. Only 12% often read information which gives a version of events in Ukraine which differs greatly from that on Russian television and other federal media

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected at the G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia on Nov 15. Please encourage journalists to ask Putin questions that pack a punch, but that only foreigners can ask without risking being hit literally!

On why Russia organized and paid for the ‘observers’ of the ‘elections’ in Donbas it is now only ‘respecting’, not ‘recognizing’ and why for both its Crimean ‘referendum’ and for the Donbas ‘elections’ its ‘observer missions’ were made up of far-right, neo-Nazi or Stalinist politicians