If the four Crimeans facing absurd ‘terrorist charges following peaceful protest against Russian occupation fall within traditional definitions of political prisoner, and Ukrainian officer Nadiya Savchenko is a prisoner of Russia’s undeclared war, Yury Yatsenko is in Russian detention because he is Ukrainian

On 28 August, the Russian Ministry of Justice added the NGO “Soldiers’ Mothers of St. Petersburg” to its official list of “foreign agents” under the 2012 law.

Why should Russia be in no doubt of ‘serious consequences’ when even with evidence pouring in of direct involvement by Russian forces using Russian tanks and sophisticated arms on Ukrainian territory, western leaders largely continued to rehash old warnings?

Ukrainian officer Nadiya Savchenko has stated clearly that she is being subjected to a psychiatric examination in the notorious Serbsky Institute illegally and will be refusing to speak to staff, answer questions or in any way cooperate

Russians are also now asking hard-hitting questions as macabre efforts continue in Pskov and other parts of Russia to conceal the death or injury of a large number of soldiers sent to fight Russia’s undeclared war against Ukraine

Ukraine’s parliament has adopted a bizarrely inappropriate bill on a ‘free economic zone’ in the Crimea which would seriously infringe the rights of Crimean Ukrainians and, by effectively recognizing Russian occupation, cast serious doubts over Ukraine’s position on Crimea.

There is more and more evidence that Russian soldiers are fighting – and dying – on Ukrainian territory, and that the so-called ‘humanitarian convoy’ may have been used to take the dead back to Russia

Parliament has adopted Law No. 4453a on international sanctions for supporting and financing terrorism in Ukraine, however the highly contentious provisions which would have enabled Ukraine’s Security and Defence Council to restrict or close Ukrainian media were withdrawn

Volodymyr Yavorsky, lawyer and human rights specialist, has subjected the latest draft law on lustration to close analysis and his verdict is not good. Instead of defending democracy, lustration as per this bill would be more likely to turn into a mechanism of selective political persecution of officials and would destroy independent institutions.

Defence of the Crimean Tatar people and their recognition as indigenous people of Ukraine are long overdue, but also seen by analysts as having an important role to play in the legal fight against Russia’s annexation of the Crimea

The tragic events in Odesa on May 2, 2014, are rapidly being transformed into a propaganda campaign for Moscow. The facts are now available and need to be widely known. By allowing outrageous claims of a fascist ‘massacre’ to go unrefuted, we risk proving yet again how very little human beings learn from history.

Russia’s authoritative Levada Centre has made public its latest public opinion survey which continues to show huge support for the Kremlin-backed militants in eastern Ukraine. Since it also finds that for 94% of the population, television is their main source of information, this is probably not surprising,

Crimea’s puppet government is seeking to remove any liability for the actions of the so-called ‘self-defence’ or paramilitary militia units in beating up and abducting people, or committing other violations, during the first month after Russia effectively invaded and annexed the Crimea..”

The Committee to Protect Journalists spoke with journalists in eastern Ukraine like Alexei Matsuka from News of Donbas. He told them that there are no independent journalists left in Donetsk. All fled after the Kremlin-backed militants began targeting and abducting reporters

Russia has thus far proven unable to credibly explain how Nadiya Savchenko came to be in Russian detention and to be charged with involvement in the deaths of a Russian journalist and cameraman. It is instead applying dubious tactics to ensure that the questions are either not asked, or not heard. Not for the first time, Russian TV has been assigned a key role.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has pointed to ongoing concerns, the imprisonment of Oleg Sentsov and three other activists; the banning of Refat Chubarov and Mustafa Dzhemiliev from their homeland; religious harassment; and much more, with none of its previous recommendations implemented

The head of Russia’s Investigative Committee has suggested that Russia needs new legislative and other changes to enable it to abduct and take to Russia all those it suspects of crimes against Russians. He claims that this is following western countries’ lead and that Russia has a history-given right to fight fascists and ‘nationalists’ in this way

Russia’s FSB has issued summonses to the heads of the Karman Art Centre whom they suspect of involvement in what they claim was a terrorist conspiracy organized by renowned Crimean film director Oleg Sentsov. The FSB seems to find first aid courses particularly ‘suspicious’.

The shooting down of MH17 has led to harsh words used about Moscow’s very major role in providing the arms and military technology, men and training for artificially manufactured unrest (and bitterly real bloodshed), but left terminology, like ‘civil war’ and ‘separatist’ largely intact

Leonid Razvozzhaev, the Russian asylum seeker abducted in Kyiv and taken to Moscow has been convicted, together with Left Front activist Sergei Udaltsov of ‘organizing mass riots”. The men’s "patriotic position" in supporting the Kremlin-backed militants in Donbas did not prevent a guilty verdict which most observers see as politically motivated