Tough words and stern warnings from EU leaders after the shooting down of MH17 resulted in yet more tough words and imprecise warnings at Tuesday’s EU meeting. This is despite unequivocal US reports suggesting that the blame lies fully with Kremlin-backed and Russian-armed militants and signs that vital evidence has been tampered with

The black boxes from the MH17 disaster are in Kremlin-backed militants’ hands, the man able to change this, Vladimir Putin has done nothing. Noises have been made by EU countries about ‘considering new sanctions’, yet France’s sale of Mistral war ships to Russia has not been cancelled, and no other specific measures indicated

A new law adopted by the occupation regime in the Crimea permits the regional authorities to forcibly purchase private property owned by individuals or legal entities. Experts believe that the wording of the document makes it possible for not only land or real estate to be forcibly purchased, but any company

As well as many other failings already reported, the law fails to ensure allocation of funding to help internally displaced persons, confusingly called ’forced migrants’, and does not specify where people should go for help

Viktor Medvedchuk is undoubtedly the Kremlin’s choice of ‘negotiator’, however why the leader of a party with apparent anti-Semitic leanings and a pronounced homophobic position should have German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s support is less clear.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is adept at producing fine-sounding words each time sanctions appear to loom. The largely meaningless revoking of authorization to send troops into Ukraine has seemingly done the trick with the EU and USA yet again backing down

In the latest of a series of affronts and infringements of the rights of Crimean Tatars under Russian occupation, a madrasa or Muslim school in the Crimea has been subjected to a long search by armed and masked men looking for evidence of ’extremism’ and arms.

As many as 20 people who were being treated for heroin addiction in the Ukrainian region of Crimea have died since the Black Sea peninsula was annexed by Russia in March.. Dozens more have left the region for other parts of Ukraine in a bid to continue methodone treatment

Three men are in detention in Kaliningrad over a peaceful protest in which they raised a German flag. Russia’s prosecution of the three is particularly incongruous given how vociferously Moscow has asserted the right of so-called separatists in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine to seize official buildings and raise Russian flags

Vladimir Putin’s insistence on ‘negotiations’ with Kremlin-backed militants had appeared merely a ploy for stymying the peace process. Who there was to talk to seemed as unclear as what they had to say. This may have changed with the ‘negotiator’ proposed suggesting a Kremlin-dictated agenda

Short analysis of the law passed on June 19 which in KHPG’s view does not resolve the problems of those forcibly displaced

According to civic activist Alexandra Dvoretska, "this law does not resolve even 10% of the problems encountered by people who’ve ended up on occupied territory or in zones where anti-terrorist operations are underway”.

On the marginals either from Russia or with pro-Russian, often far-right or even neo-Nazi leanings whom the Kremlin is helping in Donbas

Brief description of the problems now faced by internally displaced people in Ukraine

The uses being made by Moscow and the Russian media of the tragic death of Rossiya 24’s journalist Igor Kornelyuk and sound recorder Anton Voloshin and attempts to present Russian journalists as heroic defenders of the truth are manipulative and dangerous

In an open appeal, the Kharkiv Human Rights Group has called for urgent measures to evacuate all residents of areas where the authorities’ anti-terrorist operation is underway.

Five days after Ukraine’s presidential elections gave the lie to Moscow’s claims of a far right ‘junta’ in which the nationalist Right Sector is lead villain, four Crimean opponents of Russian annexation, one a prominent film director, have been accused of a Right Sector ‘terrorist conspiracy’

There has still been no adequate response from the west to the effective seizure of control in Donetsk by the Vostok Battalion comprised mainly of well-armed and trained fighters from the Russian Federation

Russian opposition activist, Dmitry Semenov is facing charges for reposting a photo of pro-Russian separatist, Pavel Gubarev. Semenov has been charged because the offending photo showed self-proclaimed ‘people’s governor’ of Donetsk, Gubarev wearing the neo-Nazi Russian National Unity party’s version of a swastika.

Timur Shaimardanov and Leonid Korzh from the civic organization Ukrainsky Dom have both been active in supporting Ukrainian military under siege after Russia’s occupation and opposing the annexation