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...

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,...

A new history textbook which, amongst other things, justifies Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine as a legitimate act of self-defence and violates children’s rights to appropriate and quality education, is a dangerous attempt to indoctrinate future generations, Amnesty International said today....

An appeal hearing at a Moscow court on Tuesday (22 August) which has upheld the 13-year sentence imposed on Maksym Butkevych, a Ukrainian human rights defender, is a grave miscarriage of justice Amnesty International said today. The decision to imprison him for 13 years was taken by the so-called...

10 August 2023 marked five months since Ukrainian human rights defender Maksym Butkevych, a prisoner of war captured by Russian forces, was “sentenced” to a long prison term by a court established by Russian-supported armed groups in eastern Ukraine in 2014. By decision of this so-called Supreme...

Responding to the Russian armed forces’ latest attack on Odesa’s port infrastructure and grain facilities, and subsequent thinly veiled threat to attack sea vessels attempting to transport Ukraine’s grain, Anna Wright, Amnesty International’s Researcher for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said:...

Immediately following their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian authorities embarked on a campaign to silence domestic criticism of the war and to stop the dissemination of reports of violations of international humanitarian law committed by Russian forces. The Russian...

Irina Danilovich, a nurse and human rights activist from Russian-occupied Crimea is still being denied healthcare. She was abducted by Russian security officials in April 2022 and sentenced to seven years in prison in December 2022 following an unfair trial. Her condition has gravely deteriorated,...

Mariano García Calatayud, a 75-year-old Spanish volunteer humanitarian worker, was forcibly disappeared by the occupying Russian authorities on 19 March 2022 in the Ukrainian city of Kherson. He disappeared after he attended a peaceful protest against the occupation. Russian authorities have been...

As the consequences of the Kakhovka dam destruction continue to unfold, the occupying Russian forces have been endangering lives in flood-afflicted areas following the destruction of the dam, while upstream water shortages and an upheaval  of livelihoods point to an impending ecological and...

In response to Russian missile attacks that reportedly killed seven people, including a mother and her child, and injured many more, Denis Krivosheev, Deputy Regional Director, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said: “As Ukraine and other countries in the region mark International Children’s Day, it...

Responding to the latest attacks by Russian forces in Ukraine, including reports of a missile attack on an apartment building which is reported to have killed at least 17 civilians, including two children, Marie Struthers, Regional Director, Eastern Europe and Central Asia said: “Russian missiles...

Lilia Hemedzhy, a lawyer representing Crimean Tatars, has been disbarred, from the Bar Association of the Chechen Republic, in retaliation for her work in Russian-occupied Crimea. Previously, her request to be transferred to the Bar Association of Crimea had been arbitrarily declined. This decision...

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 unleashed numerous war crimes, generated a global energy and food crisis and sought to further disrupt a weak multilateral system.