The lack of any grounds for the charges the FSB brought against 50-year-old Oleksandr Marchenko also proved no problem

Russia’s Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu has issued orders which effectively block almost all access to Russian military archives from the period of the Second World War

A first appeal hearing has taken place in the Russian city of Krasnodar in a case that is likely to prove most incriminating for Moscow when it reaches the European Court of Human Rights, not to mention the International Criminal Court

Dzianis Ivashin has been placed in detention after exposing the deployment of Russian fighters, involved in Russia’s invasion of Crimea and war in Donbas, as well as ex-Berkut officers, in propping up the regime of Aleksandr Lukashenka

Moscow has finally achieved its end and brought about the dissolution of one of the country’s most renowned human rights NGOs: ‘For Human Rights’, defending the ever-mounting numbers of political prisoners in Russia and occupied Crimea

The recent use of a World War II veteran for Russia’s politically motivated persecution of opposition leader Alexei Navalny has whetted the appetite of those Russian ruling party politicians responsible for legislating repression

Russian prison authorities are effectively threatening reprisals against Oleksiy Bessarabov because he is refusing to hand over the Ukrainian government’s grant to him as a political prisoner in order to pay a preposterous fine

41-year-old Anastasia Shevchenko, who has spent over 2 years under house arrest, was the first person to face criminal charges for peaceful activism as a member of Open Russia

A Russian cassation court has ignored glaring infringements of the right to a fair trial and upheld a 13-year sentence against world-renowned historian and head of the Karelia Memorial Society, Yury Dmitriev.

An important new initiative has begun exposing those academics providing the dodgy ‘expert assessments’ most often used to convict Crimean or Russian political prisoners on fabricated charges

Over the past year, Russia has already introduced criminal liability and very steep sentences against those seeking an end to Russia’s occupation of Crimea. The proposed new legislation would add yet another weapon to the arsenal.

Why is the EU confining itself to deep concern when Russia is sentencing Crimean Tatar and other Ukrainian political prisoners to 18 years, and when new laws are set to still further crush any freedom in occupied Crimea and Russia?.

The Supreme Court in Karelia has upheld reprisals against a lawyer who rightly refused to take part in depriving Russian historian and political prisoner, Yury Dmitriev, of his lawyer

Russia’s persecution of Azat Miftakhov iis almost certainly linked with his anarchist views, however the 6-year sentence handed down on 18 January also looks like punishment for refusing to admit to something he did not do

Moving interview with Ilya Shakursky, an antifascist political prisoner serving a huge sentence in Russia on charges of involvement in ta fictitious ‘Network’

Valentin Vyhivsky has now been imprisoned in Russia for over six years, after being abducted from occupied Crimea and held incommunicado for eight months – time that the FSB spent on their specific ‘methods of persuasion’

Russian attempts to discredit Yury Dmitriev are proving increasingly futile with the renowned historian of the Soviet Terror named as one of the 15 laureates of the prestigious Franco-German Prize for Human Rights for 2020.

The total secrecy around Vasyl Vasylenko’s trial iis of particular concern since his arrest was originally on different charges and was concealed by Russia’s FSB for nine months

The new rules proposed in the above bills, should they become law, will impose even tougher – indeed, nearly total – government control over Russia’s civil society.

A record four draft bills are currently awaiting ‘consideration’ in Russia’s State Duma with all evidently aimed at crushing the activities of Russian NGOs and further stifling freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly