Crimean Tatar leaders have called on Ukrainians to join a civil blockade of Russian-occupied Crimea. The blockade will continue until Russia releases its Ukrainian political prisoners, stops blocking free media in Crimea and committing other rights offences

Pavel Kanygin, a special correspondent with the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, has posted videos of two visits to the home of Aleksandrov, whose capture added to mounting evidence of a direct Russian role in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The Memorial Human Rights Centre (Moscow) must pay 600,000 roubles for refusing to apply the label ‘foreign agent’ to materials that were placed on the website of another organization

The Presidents of France, Germany and Russia marked the first anniversary of the Ilovaisk Massacre in which Russian President Vladimir Putin played a fatal role by backing “a new ceasefire”. Perhaps it would have been undiplomatic to mention Putin’s murderous treachery, but wise to keep it in mind.

Public utterances by Jeremy Corbyn, frontrunner for the UK Labour Party leadership and therefore potentiallyassessment of Russia’s annexation of Crimea coincides nicely with that presented by Russian President Vladimir Putin and on Russian television and he has simply ignored grave human rights concerns under Russian occupation.

Oleksandr Shcheholev, the former head of the Kyiv SBU [Security Service] has been remanded in custody for two months on charges relating to the killing of Euromaidan activists

Refat Chubarov, Head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, or representative assembly, has addressed an appeal to German Chancellor Angela Merkel; French President Francois Hollande and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko who are meeting in Berlin on Aug 24.

Human rights activists, musicians and former students have come out in support of well-known accordion-player Ihor Zavadsky who was sentenced to 13 years on charges of sexual abuse of minors which they believe were fabricated

Crimean Tatar volunteer Gaide Rizayeva spoke in a Radio Svoboda interview of the terrible uncertainty and lawlessness of the long months held hostage by militants, and of her belief that Crimea will again be Ukrainian. If nothing else works, she and other Crimean Tatars will be willing to take up arms to liberate their homeland, she says.

Sevastopol blogger Iryna Gorelikova has reported being hauled in for questioning after she shared a link on Facebook about Mustafa Dzhemiliev, the veteran Crimean Tatar leader and Ukrainian MP whom Russia has banned from his homeland.

The Congress of National Communities of Ukraine’s latest reports on xenophobia in Ukraine have struck another blow to Moscow’s persistent attempts to present the country as a hotbed of anti-Semitism. The reports make no mention of the "pogroms" alleged by the Russian Foreign Ministry, nor do they back Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertion of a "rampage of reactionary, nationalist and anti-Semitic forces."

The arson attack on four OSCE armoured vehicles in Donetsk on Saturday night came days after the second of two ‘protests’ in which very professional placards, some in English, demanded that the OSCE monitors “open their eyes”. The protests were widely reported on Russian television, unlike the many Special Monitoring Mission [SMM] reports of late that have noted militant infringements of the Minsk agreement.

If you believe media reports, ethnic Romanians in Ukraine’s Bukovyna are now also demanding autonomy. The road from a cheap fake to a feature in the International Business Times, quoting a “report’ was swift, cheap and dangerously effective

Yury Hukov, a well-known journalist, human rights activist working for the Kharkiv Human Rights Group was arrested on June 22 and remains in detention despite protest from colleagues over both the spurious charge against him and the lack of any grounds for his detention.

Sevastopol marathon swimmer Oleg Sofianyk has decided to stay in mainland Ukraine after being summoned for questioning about another Ukrainian, Yury Ilchenko who is in detention, seemingly for an article opposing Russia’s occupation of Crimea.

The police and recruitment offices in Kharkiv are continuing to grab young men effectively off the street and send them to military recruitment centres, despite assurances from the Interior Minister and Kharkiv Governor that such methods of ‘mobilization’ would stop.

A brief report on work of the Constitutional Commission for preparation amendments to the Second Chapter of the Constitution in Ukraine

In the framework of the monitoring mission, which was proposed and organised by the Human Rights House Network, a representative of a Human Rights organisation from Kharkiv, one of the co-organisers and an active member of the Human Rights House in Ukraine, and a Belarusian human rights defender Nasta Loiko (organisation “Viasna”) were invited for three days to Yerevan for monitoring of situation, investigation of violations human rights during the peaceful protest on Bagramyan Avenue and collecting information of the events that took place in the Armenian capital on 23 June 2015.

Ukrainian prosecutor Oleh Valendyuk should have been out of a job last fall, the victim of a lustration law meant to clear away members of former President Viktor Yanukovych’s team after his ouster at the hands of pro-European protesters. Instead, Valendyuk holds a higher position than ever: he is the top prosecutor in the capital, Kyiv.

Russia is insisting on holding the trial of captured ex-pilot Nadiya Savchenko in a Russian city bordering the area of Ukraine under Kremlin-backed militant control. There are no legitimate grounds for this move which will seriously hinder access to the trial, and could, Savchenko believes, put her mother and sister in danger