News

Russia sentences Crimean Tatar journalist and human rights activists to 19 years for exposing its repression in occupied Crimea
30.03.2023
These are the first five sentences passed in Russia’s worst offensive to date against the Crimean Tatar human rights movement, with journalist Remzi Bekirov and human rights defender Riza Izetov sentenced to 19 years’ imprisonment without any crime

Ukrainian Jehovah’s Witness faces 10-year sentence for studying the Bible in Russian-occupied Crimea
29.03.2023
A second criminal charge has been laid against 53-year-old Dmytro Naukhatsky in Russian-occupied Crimea, with the Jehovah’s Witness now facing up to ten years imprisonment solely for practising his faith

Blind and disabled Ukrainian political prisoner hospitalized, delaying Russia’s attempt to sentence him to 18 years
28.03.2023
Russia has already tortured one Crimean Tatar political prisoner to death and is directly threatening the lives of at least two others, and this may well be only a ‘stay of execution’ in Oleksandr Sizikov’s case

The Russians “treat torture as entertainment” – Enerhodar Deputy Mayor held hostage for almost a year
28.03.2023
Ivan Samoidiuk, First Deputy Mayor of Enerhodar, was the first of many Ukrainian civilians from Enerhodar to be taken prisoner by the Russian invaders

Children 'beaten for supporting Ukraine'. Seventeen kids returned after being held in Russian-occupied Crimea
27.03.2023
Seventeen Ukrainian children have been rescued and returned to their families, after a supposed ‘summer camp’ in Russian-occupied Crimea turned into six months effective captivity

Crimean lecturer dismissed, beaten and jailed for Ukrainian songs gets new sentence over a post about Russia’s killing of civilians
27.03.2023
A ‘court’ in occupied Crimea has found Andriy Bielozierov guilty of ‘repeated public actions aimed at discrediting Russia’s armed forces’ through a post on social media about Russia’s bombing and killing of civilians

Russia’s FSB come for elderly Crimean Tatar National Congress delegate in hunt for ‘saboteurs’
24.03.2023
Russia has openly targeted Crimean Tatars over the last month, with the search and detention of Mustafa Mustafayev one of two occasions where delegates of the Crimean Tatar Qurultay were singled out

Crimean radio enthusiast with a flag of Ukraine sentenced to 12 years on fake ‘spying’ charges
24.03.2023
While Russia imposes total secrecy on such ‘trials’, there is every reason to assume that 35-year-old Stanislav Stetsenko is yet another victim of the Russian regime’s spy mania in occupied Crimea.

Ukrainian officials prevent former political prisoner held in Russia from returning to Ukraine
23.03.2023
After being seized by the Russian FSB, savagely tortured and imprisoned for six and a half years, all Andriy Zakhtei wants is to get back to Ukraine, to his wife and their daughter

Imprisoned Ukrainian civic journalist declares dry hunger strike in occupied Crimea
22.03.2023
Iryna Danilovych is facing a 7-year sentence on evidently absurd charges after the FSB abducted and tortured her in occupied Crimea
Publications

‘The shells flew without end...’
30.03.2023
Valentyna Tulintseva, a resident of Severodonetsk, worked at the design institute “Chemical technologies”. She was forced to evacuate with her cancer-sick sister, grandson, and beloved dog from the city where she had everything.

People knocked on the train doors and begged: ‘Let us in; we are with the children!’
23.03.2023
During the bombing of Kramatorsk in 2014, Valentyna Bondarenko suffered a stroke. Eight years later, two seniors barely squeezed into an overcrowded train to evacuate from their hometown, heavily shelled again by Russian troops.

‘In a state of shock, I almost gave away my child …’
22.03.2023
During the shelling of Kramatorsk by the Russians, Vadim and his wife were on the evacuation train. His wife was seriously injured. Fortunately, she was saved.

‘I was at home when the shell destroyed the wall’
21.03.2023
Valerii Zinchenko, a resident of Moshchun, has eight children. Three sons went to the front to defend their homeland from Russian invaders. Valerii says he did not believe in the good intentions of the “brothers” since his time in the military service.

‘Do not look! Our house is burning’
19.03.2023
Liudmyla Shevchenko lives in Moshchun. The house they struggled to build, in which three generations of the family lived, burned down before her eyes. All they managed to save were documents.

‘We lost fifteen acquaintances who died in this war’
18.03.2023
“The invasion of Russian troops was so swift that people did not immediately understand whose helicopters with the letter ‘V’ were circling over their heads,” — says Zaika Nadiia, a village Moshchun resident. A few days later, the village was bombarded with Grads [rockets].

‘We walked around the mines and planted a vegetable garden’ — a story of a Moshchun resident
17.03.2023
Mariia Mateitseva worked as a crane operator all her life. She and her husband built two houses in Moshchun with their own hands: for themselves and their daughter. Both homes were destroyed. Mariia now lives in a shack. She has nowhere to go.

‘The earth is calling, the house is calling. I want to go home’
16.03.2023
Halyna Kononchuk lived in Sloviansk. When the war began, her sick mother was dying in her arms. Halyna had to bike many kilometers to find painkillers for her while at home, a disabled child was waiting.

‘I realized that there’d be an apple tree, the sky, the sun, but I’d no longer be’
15.03.2023
The eleven-year-old daughter of Yevheniia Savynska from the Chernihiv Region said these words. Numerous attacks forced the family to evacuate twice. Yevheniia admits that now she is most worried about the child's spirit.

Constitution of Ukraine: social contract in the trials of war
15.03.2023
The modern motto of restoration of Ukraine must not be “another bourgeois republic” but genuine intellectual freedom and market to compete and truly strive for happiness.

Wrecked cars often had ‘Children’ written on them
14.03.2023
From the first days of the war, the city of Chernihiv was subject to severe bombardments by the Russian army. Oksana Shevel, who lived in the urban settlement of Kulykivka near Chernihiv, talks about the difficult humanitarian situation, columns of refugees, and work at the volunteer headquarters.

‘Many houses have been destroyed, and people have nowhere to return to…’
13.03.2023
Tymchenko Mykhailo, a resident of the village of Moshchun, did not believe in a full-scale war. Hence, he did not have time to collect an emergency go bag or insulin supplies for the evacuation. Now he has returned to Moshchun and plans to restore his house.