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• Voices of war   • Interview

Our Super Mario — a Spanish volunteer in Russian captivity

Spanish citizen Mariano Garcia Calatayud has been in Russian captivity for over two years. He was tortured with electric shocks, his teeth were knocked out, and a dog was set on him. The volunteer’s common-law wife, Maryna Tetiana Oleksandrivna, talks about his love for Ukraine, struggle, and captivity.

• War crimes

Russia simplifies deportation of Ukrainians as ‘foreigners’ from occupied Ukraine

While making it easier to deport those whom the occupying state calls ‘foreigners’ for refusing Russian citizenship, Russia is also threatening those with a Russian passport with deportation if they didn’t swear allegiance

• War crimes

Russia acknowledges part in torture and rape through ‘trial’ and horrific sentences against three Donbas hostages

The Russian-controlled militants who savagely tortured and gang raped Natalia Vlasova, and threatened to send a bomb to kill her small daughter, were not content until she screamed ‘loud enough’

• War crimes

Almost 200 Ukrainian civilians abducted by the Russian invaders in occupied Luhansk oblast alone

The real figure could be much higher as the relatives of people abducted are often on occupied territory themselves and cannot safely report the abduction

• War crimes

Russia moves to cut already pitiful level of compensation for the homes it destroyed in Mariupol

Even in Mariupol where Moscow waged a major propaganda drive about its supposed 'reconstruction', the latter has primarily been for Russians who 'buy' up properties on land which held the homes Russia destroyed or on expropriated land

• War crimes

Ukrainians treated as ‘foreigners’ and stripped of all rights in Russian-occupied Ukraine

Had the invader's 'referendum' at gunpoint really produced overwhelming support for 'joining Russia', the latter would hardly need the aggressively coercive measures being taken to force Ukrainians to accept the occupiers' citizenhip

• Events

Ukrainian living in Russia sentenced to 13 years on ‘treason’ charge for sending money to family in Ukraine

Ostap Demchuk, together with his 17-year-old daughter, had clearly been targeted because he was Ukrainian, even before the FSB came up with grotesque ‘treason’ charges

• War crimes

Ukraine names Russian commander suspected of issuing order to kill civilians in Bucha

At least thirteen civilians were shot and killed in the three days after Artem Tireiev ordered his men to open fire at anybody passing by. The victims included Iryna Filkyna who was recognized because of her red fingernails

• Human Rights Abuses in Russian-occupied Crimea

58-year-old Sevastopol activist sentenced to 15 years for opposing Russia’s war against Ukraine

Russia has, as always, concealed virtually everything about its fast-track ‘treason trial’ against Oksana Senedzhuk, but there is every reason to believe that the charges and horrific sentence are politically motivated

• War crimes

Russia blocks YouTube and VPN in occupied Ukraine

Together with aggressive indoctrination and propaganda, Russia is seeking to impose a full information blockade both at home and on all illegally occupied Ukrainian territory

• War crimes   • Human Rights Abuses in Russian-occupied Crimea

Mustafa Dzhemilev: Russia’s occupation of Crimea spells the death of the Crimean Tatar people and forced exile

Russia would almost certainly use any 'peace deal' as opportunity to prepare for further aggression, while Crimean Tatars and other Ukrainians under Russian occupation would continue to endure mounting terror and repression

• War crimes

Russia stages fake ‘saboteur’ trial after abducting 56-year-old Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant employee

While systematically bombing Ukrainian electrical infrastructure, Russia is claiming, almost certainly without evidence that 56-year-old Natalia Shulha was part of a ‘plot’ to damage an electricity pylon