U.S. Helsinki Commission

The U.S. Helsinki Commission monitors human rights and international cooperation in the 57 countries of the OSCE. RT ≠ endorsement.

[U.S. Helsinki Commission @HelsinkiComm]

On this week's episode of The Transatlantic, @b_nishanov sits down with @olegkutkov to discuss how Ukraine uses Starlink as part of its defense, recent restrictions on Ukraine's access to the system, and how Oleg became Ukraine's leading Starlink expert. (1/2)

[U.S. Helsinki Commission @HelsinkiComm]

Stream now wherever you get your podcasts:
📽️https://t.co/aepuapTpJO
🍏https://t.co/LC97kgT055
🎧https://t.co/WF9zB9avGr (2/2)

[U.S. Helsinki Commission @HelsinkiComm]

On this week's episode of The Transatlantic, @b_nishanov sits down with @olegkutkov to discuss how Ukraine uses Starlink as part of its defense, recent restrictions on Ukraine's access to the system, and how Oleg became Ukraine's leading Starlink expert. (1/2)

[OSCE PA @oscepa]

OSCE Parliamentary Assembly leaders @NRPoturaev & @DittrichBoris raise concern over whereabouts of Vadym Golda, reiterate calls to release all three unlawfully detained OSCE officials ➡️ https://t.co/nVR13EK99S

[🍏 Vladimir Kara-Murza @vkaramurza]

The U.S. Senate unanimously adopts S.Res.472 designating October 30 as the International Day of Political Prisoners and urging the U.S. Government to work for the release of political prisoners worldwide through bilateral and multilateral negotiations.

Deeply grateful to everyone who has made this happen — especially @SenatorWicker @SenatorShaheen @SenWhitehouse.

[U.S. Helsinki Commission @HelsinkiComm]

This year, Russia has already recruited 16,000 foreigners to use as fodder for its war against Ukraine. While some are willing mercenaries, Russia relies on exploiting people in dire need and deceiving them into fighting and dying in a war they never intended to join.

[Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty @RFERL]

“Twenty of my fellow countrymen were killed in drone strikes right before my eyes,” said Razan, a Bangladeshi national who went to Russia for work and ended up fighting in Ukraine. @DaudKhattak1
https://t.co/KK8dwdHdW5

[U.S. Helsinki Commission @HelsinkiComm]

Last week, Margaryta Shabanova, wife of Dmytro Shabanov—another OSCE staff member in Russian detention, testified about the conditions her husband and his colleagues are being held in: https://t.co/lwTPfUIVXx

[Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty @RFERL]

“Twenty of my fellow countrymen were killed in drone strikes right before my eyes,” said Razan, a Bangladeshi national who went to Russia for work and ended up fighting in Ukraine. @DaudKhattak1
https://t.co/KK8dwdHdW5

[U.S. Helsinki Commission @HelsinkiComm]

Russia is attempting to destroy Ukrainian culture and society, but Ukraine's universities, schools, and students are adapting and evolving to meet the challenge.

Join us to discuss Ukraine’s hard-won experience and lessons in the role of education as the foundation of freedom.⤵️

[U.S. Helsinki Commission @HelsinkiComm]

BRIEFING—Generation Victory: How Ukraine is Educating Students in Wartime
📅Nov. 16
🕕11am
🏛️Rayburn 2247
Join us for a discussion about Ukraine's education of its young people and the central role it plays in Ukraine's resistance against Russia's genocidal pressure (1/2)

[U.S. Helsinki Commission @HelsinkiComm]

For more information and to stream live, please visit: https://t.co/UNpa64jgVt (2/2)

[U.S. Helsinki Commission @HelsinkiComm]

BRIEFING—Generation Victory: How Ukraine is Educating Students in Wartime
📅Nov. 16
🕕11am
🏛️Rayburn 2247
Join us for a discussion about Ukraine's education of its young people and the central role it plays in Ukraine's resistance against Russia's genocidal pressure (1/2)

[U.S. Helsinki Commission @HelsinkiComm]

Last week, Margaryta Shabanova, wife of Dmytro Shabanov—another OSCE staff member in Russian detention, testified about the conditions her husband and his colleagues are being held in: https://t.co/lwTPfUIVXx

[U.S. Helsinki Commission @HelsinkiComm]

Despite sustained international pressure on Russia to release illegally detained OSCE staff, Russia has transferred Vadym Golda to a prison in Russia, further isolating him and threatening his health and life.

[Andrii Sybiha 🇺🇦 @andrii_sybiha]

We are gravely alarmed by information regarding the possible transfer to Siberia of Vadym Golda, one of three OSCE staff members illegally detained by Russia. He has been held incommunicado since October 15.

This is yet another blatant disregard by Russia of its obligations under the Geneva Conventions. Ukrainians in the temporarily occupied territories are deprived of their most basic rights and remain entirely at the mercy of the occupying power.

We demand that Russia provide credible and verifiable information on the whereabouts and conditions of all three illegally detained OSCE staff members and ensure immediate and unrestricted access to them.

We call on the OSCE community to intensify pressure on Russia to secure the immediate release of Dmytro Shabanov, Maksym Petrov and Vadym Golda.

[U.S. Helsinki Commission @HelsinkiComm]

For more information and to stream live, please visit: https://t.co/UNpa64jgVt

[Mykyta Poturaiev @NRPoturaev]

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.

On 9 November 1976, a group of courageous people dared to do something that seemed almost impossible at the time. They openly told the Soviet totalitarian empire that every human being has the right to be free. The right to speak the truth. The right to their own language, culture, faith and beliefs. The right to live in their own country without being afraid of their own government.

Mykola Rudenko, Levko Lukianenko, Oksana Meshko, Petro Hryhorenko, Oleksa Tykhyi, Myroslav Marynovych, Mykola Matusevych and their fellow dissidents knew perfectly well what they were risking.

They knew that speaking the truth could cost them their freedom. Perhaps even their lives.

And yet, they refused to surrender.

They were imprisoned, sent to labour camps and into exile, subjected to relentless attempts to break their bodies and spirits. Vasyl Stus, Oleksa Tykhyi, Yuriy Lytvyn and Valeriy Marchenko never returned from Soviet prison camps.

But their truth proved stronger than the empire.

And today, above all, I want to say this: we owe these people far more than we sometimes realise.

Our independence. Our dignity. Our very ability to speak freely, to think freely, and to choose our own future.

And today, as President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, I want to reach beyond Ukraine.

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the human rights defenders from all the republics of the former Soviet Union who upheld the Helsinki principles not merely through words, but through the example of their own lives.

Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Belarusians, Moldovans, the peoples of Central Asia. And Russian human rights defenders who had the courage to stand against the crimes of their own state.

To all those who refused to submit.

To all those who endured prisons, labour camps, exile and persecution.

To all those who paid for freedom with their lives.

They taught us that even the most terrifying dictatorship is not all-powerful. That truth has strength. That human dignity can overcome fear.

And today, as Ukraine once again fights for its freedom against Russian aggression, we understand the price of their courage more deeply than ever.

The Helsinki principles are not merely words written on paper half a century ago. They are principles for which people suffered, struggled and died. And principles we have a duty to defend today.

Eternal remembrance to those who are no longer with us.

Eternal gratitude to all those who helped us become free human beings.

And my deepest respect to those who continue this struggle today.

Because freedom is never guaranteed forever. But thanks to people like them, we know that it is always worth fighting for.

Slava Ukraini!

[Andrii Sybiha 🇺🇦 @andrii_sybiha]

Moscow’s blatant disregard of international law has no limits.

It came to our knowledge that Vadym Golda has already been transferred to the medical-correctional facility in Russia’s Tambov region, placing his health - both physical and mental - at an even more serious risk.

If confirmed, Vadym will be the third OSCE staff member from Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territory transferred to Russia in a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions. These actions may also amount to war crimes, the latest in a series of grave violations suffered by the three OSCE staff members.

I call on the OSCE Secretary General and Swiss Chairmanship to act without delay to verify their whereabouts and secure their immediate and unconditional release. Ukraine will also raise this issue at the OSCE Permanent Council.

All three OSCE SMM staff members - Dmytro Shabanov, Maksym Petrov and Vadym Golda - must be finally freed. Now.

[Robbie Gramer @RobbieGramer]

Zelensky said Russian forces used North Korean KN-23 ballistic missiles in an overnight strike on a key Ukrainian energy facility, with air defenses able to intercept only 4 of 36 ballistic missiles due to an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors.

https://t.co/22eQ9EEVK1

[Andrii Sybiha 🇺🇦 @andrii_sybiha]

Tonight, for the 16th time this year alone, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant has lost all external power. Once again, nuclear safety at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP depends on emergency diesel generators, with fuel reserves sufficient for only around two weeks of limited operation.

The sheer recklessness of this situation is staggering. The same country that illegally occupies the plant continues to devastate Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, putting European nuclear safety at serious risk.

Russia has no right to hold an entire continent hostage to the consequences of its occupation. Moscow has turned nuclear safety into another instrument of blackmail, demonstrating a cynical disregard for the risks its actions pose. The Kremlin cannot pretend that the consequences of its actions will somehow remain confined to Ukraine.

We appreciate the continued efforts of @iaeaorg Director General @rafaelmgrossi and his team to safeguard nuclear safety at the plant.

Russia has been and remains the only source of safety risks and power supply problems. This is the Kremlin’s cynicism at its most dangerous: creating nuclear risks while obstructing efforts to address them.

The international response must finally match the scale of the danger. Sanctions against Rosatom are long overdue. A corporation directly involved in the illegal occupation of a nuclear power plant cannot continue enjoying business as usual internationally.

Europe’s nuclear safety cannot remain at the mercy of the country that deliberately put it at risk. The only sustainable solution is the return of the Zaporizhzhia NPP to its rightful owner and operator, Ukraine.

[Nate Sibley @NateSibley]

Insider: The Constitutional Court in Tbilisi has begun hearing a case brought by the ruling Georgian Dream party, which seeks to ban the country’s five main opposition parties.

Just a few years ago, Georgia was considered a model of democratic development in the region.
https://t.co/z2YU0YchGj

[Stephanie Liechtenstein @StLiechtenstein]

NEW: Worrying update on the situation of Vadym Golda, one of three imprisoned OSCE staff members. According to a statement from the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group, Golda was last in touch with his family on Oct. 15. It is unknown where he is now. 1/

[Lisa Curtis @LisaCurtisDC]

Grateful to Rep. @Robert_Aderholt for emphasizing the critical work that our @RFERL @AzattyqRadiosy colleagues do. We are proud to serve our audiences in Kazakhstan.