The COVID-19 pandemic exposed chronic under-resourcing in health care. The authorities used the pandemic as a pretext to continue the crackdown on all dissent, including through amendments to a vaguely worded law on “fake news” and tightening restrictions on public gatherings. Peaceful protesters,...

This overview was updated on 30 May 2022. Russia began an all-out invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, carrying out extensive military operations marked by war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law. Using indiscriminate weapons such as cluster munitions in populated...

Tofik Abdulgaziev, human rights activist from Crimea sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment on politically motivated charges in Russia, was hospitalized in a critical condition in March 2024. He has lost 15 kg and has been diagnosed with tuberculosis, pneumonia and other life-threatening conditions....

The use of anti-personnel landmines, which litter territories in Ukraine formerly and currently occupied by Russian forces, continue to pose a deadly threat to civilians and must be subject to a prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigation, Amnesty International said in a public...

In August 2022, six months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian forces launched an offensive that expelled Russian forces from Mykolaiv oblast, as well as large parts of Kherson and Kharkiv oblasts. The Russian withdrawal was accompanied by emerging evidence of gross human...

Responding to the latest, particularly heavy Russian missile strikes that have killed dozens of civilians across Ukraine and hit major medical facilities in Kyiv, including five buildings of a children’s hospital, Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central...

Responding to the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing arrest warrants against Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov for their alleged responsibility for the war crimes of directing attacks at civilian objects and causing excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects, as...

Responding to Russia’s extensive attacks across Ukraine, including the latest overnight airstrikes which have targeted Ukraine’s electricity grid, Patrick Thompson, Amnesty International’s Ukraine Researcher, said: “In what may be cumulatively one of Russia’s most destructive series of strikes on...

Anna Before the events of spring 2014, Anna lived in Donetsk, having recently graduated, Anna hoped to pursue a career as a language teacher. “We have lots of spring holidays and”, she recalls that times. “We generally spent them with our relatives in Kramatorsk and nearby villages. That...

Since the occupation of Crimea 10 years ago, Russia has sought to change the peninsula’s ethnic makeup and suppress the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar communities, Amnesty International said today in a new publication, on the tenth anniversary of the illegal annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula by...

During ten years of occupation, Russia has attempted to reshape the demography of Crimea. It has also suppressed Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar identities through restrictions on education, religion, media, representative institutions, judicial system, and cultural celebrations. Russia must end...

Responding to the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing arrest warrants against Lt. Gen. Sergei Kobylash and Adm. Viktor Sokolov, of the Russian Armed Forces, each allegedly responsible for the war crimes of directing attacks at civilian objects and of causing excessive incidental harm to...

There can be no justice for Ukrainians without full accountability for all crimes committed by Russia since its military intervention in 2014, Amnesty International said today, on the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Since the 2014 occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea, Amnesty...

Responding to the news that occupying Russian authorities have sentenced 33 Ukrainian prisoners of war to jail terms ranging from 27 to 29 years following unlawful trials, Anna Wright, Researcher for Amnesty International, said: “The captured Ukrainian soldiers stood accused of grave crimes under...