The retrial is underway in Russia of a Crimean Tatar whose 7-year prison sentence for alleged involvement in a peaceful organization that is legal in Ukraine was challenged as too light. There was no evidence against Ruslan Zeitullaev, and remains none, but he is likely to get a minimum 15-year sentence to to save the FSB being asked uncomfortable questions.

Jailed Crimean Tatar activist Marlen Mustafaev has finally been released, 6 days after the 10 friends and neighbours imprisoned for standing outside his home in solidarity with the detained activist and reporting on the search underway. The mass detentions on Feb 21 and absurd sentences upheld at farcical court hearings marked a new, disturbing escalation in Russian attempts to quash any independent thinking and resistance to terror tactics in occupied Crimea .

“Russian friend, if they order you to, will you shoot at me?” This question was the last post 39-year-old Reshat Ametov made on Facebook, the day before his silent picket in protest at the Russian soldiers who had invaded his home. The Crimean Tatar father of three was seized by so-called ‘self-defence’ paramilitaries from outside the Crimean Parliament in Simferopol on 3 March, 2014 and tortured to death.

Exactly three years after Russian soldiers with machine guns, but no insignia seized control in Crimea, a Ukrainian journalist has gone on trial, accused of ‘public calls to violate Russian territorial integrity’ for an article in which he called this occupation and expressed the wish that it would end

In addressing his “dear comrades” in Russia’s FSB, Vladimir Putin claimed that Ukraine was “openly speaking of organizing sabotage and terrorist activities, subversion, including in Russia”. Evidence was not provided, but then Putin knows he can rely on his ‘comrades’ to come up with arrests and ‘confessions’ to such sabotage and terrorism, with Russian courts then rubberstamping the sentences demanded.

On the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Crimea, at least 30 Crimean Tatars and other Ukrainians are imprisoned on politically motivated charges and others are facing trial for saying that Russia must leave Crimea. 69 children are growing up without fathers who have been arrested, or abducted and murdered.

A massive demonstration, organized by the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, outside Crimea’s parliament on February 26, 2014 prevented Russia from claiming Crimea had voluntarily chosen to be annexed. This is not just information for historians since the demonstration has been used as pretext for one of the most lawless of Russia’s trials in occupied Crimea – and for revenge against Crimean Tatars

For the second time in a month, Russian media have produced fake news stories about ‘terrorists’ after a prominent lawyer the first time and civic activists on both occasions were detained in Russian-occupied Crimea. The report on Feb 21 even used entirely false video footage

Another Crimean Tatar has been charged in Russian-occupied Crimea over an innocuous social network post from 2014, with 10 other Crimean Tatars who arrived outside his home to show moral support and report what has happening also taken away

Russian FSB border guards are reported to have arrested a young Crimean Tatar - Seit-Ibraim Zaitullaev - described in most pro-Kremlin media as a ‘saboteur’ and member of the ‘Asker Battalion’.

It is increasingly evident that the FSB have a great deal to conceal, including indications that the victims of its ‘Crimean saboteur’ plot were selected in advance and enticed into a trap .

Ukraine is taking Russia to the European Court of Human Rights over its ban of the internationally recognized Mejlis or Crimean Tatar self-governing body. The ban has rightly been condemned as “a hostile act against the entire Crimean Tatar people” and as a new low for Russia

In a move as unexpected as it is lawless, Crimean Tatar leader Ilmi Umerov has been deprived of his defence lawyer Nikolai Polozov. The Crimean Supreme Court under Russian occupation rejected Polozov’s appeal against a ruling allowing Polozov to be interrogated as a ‘witness’ in Umerov’s case. A

Russia is increasingly using citizenship as one of its weapons against dissent and civic activism in occupied Crimea. It has claimed that imprisoned Crimean filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko ‘automatically’ became Russian citizens as its excuse for not returning the two Ukrainian political prisoners, yet uses lack of Russian citizenship in other cases to remove people from their homeland.

It is a year since the multiple armed searches of at least 11 homes in Russian-occupied Crimea and arrests of four men, including a human rights activist monitoring rights abuses under occupation. The four men remain imprisoned, facing absurd charges, and in at least one case, their children have been terrorized by the FSB.

Three UK academics specializing in military history are currently taking part in meetings and propaganda media shots in Russian-occupied Crimea. They appear to be promising a joint project with Bristol University which says that the men have nothing to do with them.

Instead of returning Crimea or at least putting an end to grave human rights violations on the Ukrainian peninsula, Russia is pulling out (or even creating) marginal groups for use in stunts like the latest appeal by a marginal Crimean Tatar organization to the UN to recognize Crimea as Russian and lift sanctions

A Crimean for whom the words of Ukraine’s national anthem about “laying down life and soul for our freedom” are his credo in life has become the latest political prisoner in Russian-occupied Crimea. The renowned Memorial Human Rights Centre’s statement declaring Volodymyr Balukh a political prisoner and demanding his release came as the Ukrainian farmer spent his 45th birthday jailed on overtly absurd charges

The Russian media has widely reported plans to publish “the first Ukrainian-language newspaper in Crimea”. ‘First’ it is not, but it will be the only paper in Ukrainian since Russia’s invasion and occupation of Crimea. It may be used merely for propaganda purposes, however the ‘Ukrainian society’ supposedly behind the initiative was formed by the occupation government and has an openly anti-Kyiv position

Crimean lawyer Emil Kurbedinov has been freed after 10 days’ unwarranted imprisonment but the FSB are still holding computers seized during armed searches. This is an obvious violation – recognized by everybody except Russia’s Ombudsperson – of both Kurbedinov’s rights and the rights of the many victims of persecution he is defending