In the ten years since Russia launched its war of aggression against Ukraine, Ukraine estimates that Russia has inflicted some $60 billion in damages to Ukraine’s natural and man-made environments and pushed Ukraine to the brink of ecological collapse.  Vast swaths of Ukraine are contaminated with landmines, toxic chemicals, and heavy metals.  Hundreds of thousands […]

In 2012, Russia adopted a foreign agents law which has been used repeatedly to crack down on independent civil society and opposition, closing organizations and jailing dissenters. Over the past several years, there has been a proliferation of Russian-style foreign agents laws in other countries which, while justified as providing transparency for foreign funding and […]

Russia has targeted Ukrainian civilians since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.  Civilians have been arbitrarily detained, transferred, mistreated, tortured, and even killed extrajudicially as an apparent part of Putin’s war strategy.  Thousands have disappeared or are being held without being able to communicate with their families. In February, 45 OSCE states invoked […]

Russia has damaged or destroyed countless Ukrainian museums, libraries, cultural centers, theaters, schools, and sites of religious and historical significance. These physical attacks are accompanied by the Kremlin’s public denigration and even denial of a distinct Ukrainian national identity. This combination of physical destruction and insidious propaganda has by design posed an existential threat to […]

  Russia’s invading forces have left more than a quarter of Ukraine’s territory contaminated with landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO), including areas in the Donbas that had already been riddled with mines since 2014.  Landmines and UXO had killed and maimed more than 1,100 civilians by 2022.  The already-severe humanitarian impact of mines and unexploded […]

Ukraine’s children are suffering serious injury and trauma due to Russia’s genocidal war on Ukraine. Almost two-thirds of the country’s children have been displaced. Thousands have been injured and, although UNICEF has said more than 1,000 children have been killed, that number is likely much higher as there is no reliable way to verify how […]

Since February 24, 2022, Western countries have imposed sanctions against Russian officials, businessmen, and public figures who support Russian aggression against Ukraine by financial or political means. Personal sanctions have been effective in creating tension between Putin’s proponents and continuing to help Ukraine fight for its independence. The biggest issue of personal sanctions policy is […]

Russia, in its brutal war against Ukrainians, has been ruthlessly and methodically targeting Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and other civilian objects, plunging millions of Ukrainians, including children and the elderly, into darkness and cold. Schools, hospitals, maternity wards, and kindergartens have not been able to function. And while there are no reliable estimates on the number […]

Russia’s violently imperial war in Ukraine is not only a flagrant violation of international law and interstate norms, but it also carries all the hallmarks of an ongoing campaign of genocide in Ukraine. From Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s 7,000-word screed that systematically and historically denies Ukrainian nationhood; to mass graves uncovered in almost every Ukrainian […]

On the Front Lines with the Ukrainian Military’s Foreign Soldiers Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Rep. Steve Cohen and Ranking Member Rep. Joe Wilson joined former U.S. Army Staff Sergeant James Vasquez and Lt. Colonel Ripley “Rip” Rawlings (USMC, Ret.) to discuss U.S. volunteers fighting for Ukraine. Mr. Vasquez is a volunteer soldier fighting in Ukraine who […]

Russia’s barbaric war on Ukraine—and before that on Syria, Libya, Georgia, and Chechnya—has exposed the Russian Federation’s viciously imperial character to the entire world. Its aggression also is catalyzing a long-overdue conversation about Russia’s interior empire, given Moscow’s dominion over many indigenous non-Russian nations, and the brutal extent to which the Kremlin has taken to […]

The Helsinki Commission was briefed on 6,000 bribetakers and warmongers identified by Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.