Some developments in the Oleh Sentsov case:
Lawyers of Oleh Sentsov, the Crimean film director whom Russia sentenced to 20 years in prison for allegedly masterminding "terrorist attacks," has lodged an appeal against the verdict with the Russian Supreme Court.
One of Sentsov's advocates, Dmitry Dinze. wrote on Facebook that they had appealed to the Supreme Court although they did not yet have a date for the hearing. He added that they intended to take Sentsov's case to the European Court of Human Rights as well.
Dinze also stated that a different hearing will be held on September 9 in Moscow, where Sentsov's lawyers have taken a case against the Russia's federal security service, the FSB, for publishing a "false press release" about their client.
Sentsov and his lawyers maintain that his conviction was politically motivated due to his vocal opposition to Russia's forcible annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Here is a map of the latest situation in the Donbas conflict zone, issued by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (click image to enlarge):
Russia's court hearings in the case of jailed Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko will resume on September 15, according to her lawyer Nikolai Polozov.
The court in Donetsk in Russia's Rostov-on-Don region published a statement on its website saying that the defense's request to relocate the hearings to Moscow was denied.
"Next date of the preliminary hearing on the criminal case against Savchenko is scheduled for September 15 at 11 a.m.," the court's statement says, which Polozov tweeted.
The hearing will be closed and "to ensure the safety of the participants," access to the courthouse will be limited.
MARIUPOL, Ukraine — Just an hour’s drive from this city under siege, at an old resort on the Azov Sea that’s now a military base, militants from Chechnya—veterans of the jihad in their own lands and, more recently, in Syria—now serve in what’s called the Sheikh Mansur Battalion. Some of them say they have trained, at least, in the Middle East with fighters for the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS.
Among the irregular forces who’ve enlisted in the fight against the Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, few are more controversial or more dangerous to the credibility of the cause they say they want to serve. Russian President Vladimir Putin would love to portray the fighters he supports as crusaders against wild-eyed jihadists rather than the government in Ukraine that wants to integrate the country more closely with Western Europe.
Yet many Ukrainian patriots, desperate to gain an edge in the fight against the Russian-backed forces, are willing to accept the Chechen militants on their side.