Freedom of expression
On 12/3 Oksana Sevastidi, pardoned by President Putin on 7/3, was released. On 15/3 the Supreme Court upheld her conviction for high treason. (RFE/RL, 12/3, 15/3; The Moscow Times, 15/3)

On 13/3 Ruslan Sokolovsky pleaded not guilty to charges of religious hatred and hooliganism for playing a game on his phone in a church. (RFE/RL; The Moscow Times, 13/3)

On 14/3 editor of Regnum news agency, Belarusian citizen Yuriy Baranchyk, was detained at Minsk's request. (RFE/RL, 15/3)

On 15/3 the State Duma approved legislation restricting live broadcasts of open trials. (RFE/RL, 15/3)

On 15/3 a State Duma committee recommended adoption of a bill on blocking mirror websites. (RAPSI, 15/3)

On 16/3 journalist Evgeny Khamaganov died in unexplained circumstances in Ulan-Ude, Buryatia. (RFE/RL, 17/3)

On 16/3 a Cheboksary court found activist Dmitry Semenov guilty of "distribution of extremist materials." (RFE/RL, 17/3)

On 17/3 the Duma ordered a probe into whether RFE/RL, VoA, and CNN are in compliance with Russian laws. (RFE/RL, 17/3)

Freedom of conscience
On 16/3 the justice ministry asked the Supreme Court to ban the Jehovah's Witnesses for “extremism". (BBC, 17/3)

Right of association
On 14/3 Levada Centre lost an appeal against “foreign agent” designation. (The Moscow Times, 14/3)

On 14/3 the FSB in Tatarstan detained 15 alleged members of the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir organization. (RFE/RL, 14/3)

Torture
On 14/3 the ECtHR ruled Russia was behind a 2007 attack on rights defender Oleg Orlov and three journalists. (RFE/RL, 17/3)

On 14/3 the ECtHR awarded €50,000 compensation for torture to imprisoned Chechen militant Arsan Mukayev. (RAPSI, 14/3)

Ukraine
On 13/3 Nariman Dzhelyal, a deputy chair of the Mejlis, was questioned by anti-extremism police in Simferopol about a 2016 interview he gave to a Ukrainian TV. (RFE/RL, 13/3)

On 15/3 Emil Mukhteremov, a Crimean Tatar, alleged FSB officers threatened to kill him if he refused to testify against six men. (Human Rights in Ukraine, 16/3)

On 15/3 the OHCHR reported almost 10,000 people killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 15/3)

On 17/3 the OSCE prolonged its monitoring mission in Ukraine until March 2018. (RFE/RL, 17/3)