Without immediate hospitalization, Uzair Abdullaev’s life is in danger, yet the Russian-controlled SIZO prison staff in Simferopol are simply injecting him with antibiotics that only fleetingly reduce his temperature

Ukraine’s legislators are still dragging their feet on vital legislation needed to support Russia’s ever-rising number of Ukrainians imprisoned on politically-motivated charges or for their faith, as well as their families.  A recent legislative initiative not only gave Ukraine’s Security Service the role of deciding who qualifies, but also effectively means that prisoners themselves would not be eligible for support until after their release. 

27-year-old Oleksandr Steshenko from Kharkiv has become the latest Ukrainian to suffer the cost of visiting Crimea under Russian occupation.  Steshenko first disappeared on 11 April, with the story he was still able to give his mother by phone radically different from the occupation authorities’ version. He has now disappeared again, after being held in administrative arrest, and lawyer Aider Azermatov believes that this must be viewed as an abduction.

49-year-old Zarema Kulametova has been convicted in Russian-occupied Crimea of ‘insulting’ a police officer on the day that her son disappeared for several hours after being taken away by armed enforcement officers. The officer was awarded ’compensation’ after claiming to have ’been depressed for several months"

The Russian-controlled ‘government’ in occupied Crimea has decided to ‘hand over’ Ukraine’s Tuzla Island to Russia. The move is linked with Russia’s construction of a bridge between Russia and Crimea, and is legally meaningless

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has proposed amendments to the Law on Citizenship which, if passed, would deprive Crimeans of their Ukrainian citizenship for actions forced on them by Russia as occupying state

It is exactly a year since the UN’s International Court of Justice ordered Russia to withdraw its extraordinary ban of the Mejlis, or self-governing body of the Crimean Tatar people, and to ensure education in Ukrainian in occupied Crimea.

Crimean Tatar Human Rights activist Emir-Usein Kuku and five other Ukrainian Muslims are facing huge sentences on fatally flawed charges with the ‘evidence’ so far provided by a traitor, now working for Russia’s FSB, and an alcoholic ‘secret witness’, whose testimony seems to have been dictated by the prosecution

‘Secret documents’ have been cited in Russian-occupied Crimea to justify holding the trial of Yevhen Panov behind closed doors. Since no secret material was ever mentioned to either Panov, or his lawyer, this may well simply be the latest attempt to conceal the lack of any substance to the charges against the Ukrainian

The identity remains unclear of a 24-year-old Crimean arrested on 20 March for alleged involvement in non-existent military action by a Crimean Tatar volunteer battalion. It seems likely, however, that there will be more such arrests, with Russia openly targeting Crimeans involved in defending Ukraine in Donbas, and mentioning other charges earlier used in propaganda against exiled Crimean Tatar leaders and Crimean Muslims. 

A UNESCO decision which could send a monitoring mission to Russian-occupied Crimea is belated and piecemeal given the scale of Russia’s destruction of the Khan’s Palace, or Hansaray, in Bakhchysarai, a site of huge Crimean Tatar historical and cultural heritage. News of the UNESCO decision coincides with the latest shocking images from Crimea where a construction firm with no experience in restoration work has been let loose on a complex dating back to the 16th century.

While it is Crimean Muslims who are in ever-increasing numbers facing imprisonment for their faith in Russian-occupied Crimea, it was the Orthodox Church under the Kyiv Patriarchate that first came under fire following annexation, and that remains under relentless pressure.

A year after Russia outlawed the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a first believer is on trial, facing a ten-year prison sentence and repressive measures are gaining pace.  These include armed searches and arrests, as well as the state theft of Jehovah’s Witness land and property.  It seems only a matter of time before Jehovah’s Witnesses join the ever-rising number of Ukrainians illegally imprisoned in occupied Crimea.

Crimean youth are to be enlisted for filling the Internet with ‘correct information’ about life in Russian-occupied Crimea, with the occupiers determining just what content is ‘correct’, and what is to be dubbed ‘fake’

Russia is deliberately creating an atmosphere of fear and aggression in occupied Crimea with Ukraine and Ukrainians pitched as ‘the enemy’

It is four years since Mykola Shyptur became Russia’s first and least-known Ukrainian political prisoner in occupied Crimea.  Although the circumstances remain unclear, it seems likely that the intervention of a police officer may have resulted in his politically motivated 9-year sentence, but did at least save his life.

Russia has responded to Ukraine’s expulsion of 13 diplomats with nominal symmetry, but brutal precision, targeting both Moscow and the consulate in Rostov where many of Russia’s politically-motivated trials of Ukrainians are held.  Rostov also borders areas of Donbas under Kremlin-backed militant control, and Russia would doubtless prefer as few Ukrainian eyes as possible monitoring its regular flow of fighters, military equipment and arms across the border.

Almost two weeks after political prisoner Volodymyr Balukh went on hunger strike in Russian-occupied Crimea, his lawyer has only just been able to see him.  She reports that he is looking thin and gaunt, and that the SIZO [remand prison] staff are putting pressure on him to end his hunger strike.

Ukraine is fed up with Russian airlines not paying the 5 billion UAH they owe for illegal flights to Crimea & plan to seek the arrest of the planes when they land in other countries. While hurdles are inevitable, the move will raise important – and uncomfortable – questions about appropriate measures against brazen violations of international law and sanctions.

The supposed investigation into the abduction of Ervin Ibragimov, Crimean Tatar activist and member of the World Congress of Crimean Tatars Executive Committee was abandoned in Russian-occupied Crimea without ever really being started.  Given the video footage from May 24, 2016, showing Ibragimov being dragged away by men in uniform, the lies told and resistance to any real investigation look damning.