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Lucy has written for BBC Online as well as The GuardianThe TimesThe TelegraphThe New European, The Mail on Sunday, Marie Claire and Reader's Digest.

 
 

Taiwan’s eyes are on the Ukraine war

It aspires to be a beacon for democracy in Asia. But Putin’s invasion has left the nation in fear of attack from the Chinese mainland.

 
 

Those who wait: the Ukrainian families left behind

Across Ukraine, people have given up their former lives to become soldiers. Back home, their families listen for news from the front.

 
 

HIV: Russia’s other deadly losing battle

Moscow likes to pretend that HIV is not a problem. Now it has an epidemic on its hands.

 
 

The country that sees danger everywhere

Will Lithuania be the next Ukraine?

 
 

In the Carpathians - a refuge from the war

Wood burning stoves are a lifeline for Ukrainians fleeing missiles and plunging temperatures.

 
 

What Bucha means to Ukraine

As Vladimir Putin threatens the world, a suburb of Kyiv tries to rebuild in the aftermath of war crimes by his troops.

 
 

COLD CASE –

Justice for Christelle

A pair of maverick lawyers helped a mother hunt for her daughter’s killer – it took her 18 years.

 
 
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A police officer with a conscience who left Belarus

Andrei Ostapovich is one of hundreds of Belarusian police officers now in exile in Poland and the Baltic states.

 
 
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Grimsby fishermen remember the glory days - how do they see the future?

Today fishing contributes just a 10th of 1% to Britain's economy - less than Harrods, London's best-known department store - and yet it's at the centre of negotiations over the UK's post-Brexit deal with the EU.

 
 
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Inside Poland’s 'LGBT-free zones'

In Poland, dozens of small towns have declared themselves free of "LGBT ideology".

 
 
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BBC Online - Dyatltov Pass

The Dyatlov Pass mystery spawned dozens of conspiracy theories, which have endured for 60 years. Lucy Ash traces the group's journey and tells their story through their diaries, photographs and letters.

 
 
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BBC Online - Russian domestic violence: Women fight back

Two years ago, many Russians were shocked when the parliament significantly reduced penalties for domestic violence. Since then, women have been fighting back - demanding new legislation to restrain abusers, demonstrating in support of three sisters who took the law into their own hands, and finding new ways of tackling outdated attitudes on gender.

 
 
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BBC Online - Why are graduates competing to be prison officers?

The government-backed Unlocked Graduates scheme trains university leavers to work as prison officers. But how much difference can they make in prisons where staffing levels are low, and it's a rush even to do the bare minimum?

 
 
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BBC Online - Marseille Housing

The collapse of two apartment buildings in Marseille last November left the city in mourning for eight people who died, but also furious. In the past, the story of a young woman whose rented flat grew a layer of black mould might have received little attention - now it's seen as cutting to the heart of the city's problems.

 
 
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BBC Online - The Christmas Present That Could Tear Your Family Apart

This Christmas it's likely that more people than ever before will spit into a tube, or swab some cheek cells and send the result off for DNA analysis. Millions in the US have already done it, and the craze is spreading. But what happens when you find out a lot more than you were expecting?

 
 
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Sunday Telegraph - One century on, Britain’s ‘forgotten’ war with Russia

Lord Ironside opens the leather-bound album resting on his lap to show me his favourite photograph. “Look at that!” he says, pointing to a picture of a broad-shouldered man in a coat made from reindeer skins. The moustachioed wall of fur towers over a small Russian boy standing next to him in the snow. “My father was a huge fellow, 6ft 5in,” says Ironside, “so his nickname was ‘Tiny’.”

 
 
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BBC Online: Last call for Nevada’s brothels?

There have been brothels in Nevada since the days of the Gold Rush, but in one of the state's 16 counties that could be about to change. Voters in Lyon County have a chance to put an end to legal prostitution in November, in a ballot coinciding with the country's mid-term elections. 

 
 
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BBC World Service - The crop that put women on top in Zanzibar

Seaweed has been hailed as a new superfood, and it's also found in toothpaste, medicine and shampoo. In Zanzibar, it's become big business - and as it has been farmed principally by women, it has altered the sexual balance of power.

 
 
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BBC Online - Goodbye Russia: A generation packs its bags

Russia's leading environmental activist is one of more than a million people - many of them young and well-educated - who have packed their bags and left the country in recent years, writes the BBC's Lucy Ash. Russian even has a word for the phenomenon, "poravalism".

 
 
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BBC Online -'Death Island': Britain's 'concentration camp' in Russia

When British soldiers were sent to Russia after the Russian Revolution their main enemies were the Germans - their opponents in World War One - but they also found themselves fighting and imprisoning Bolsheviks. In the process they opened what Russians regard as the first concentration camp in their country.

 
 
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BBC Online - Algeria's Said Chitour - spy or journalist?

The family of Algerian journalist Said Chitour has been desperately trying to secure his release since he was arrested on espionage charges after visiting Spain, writes the BBC's Lucy Ash

 
 
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BBC Online - Yuliya Stepanova: What do Russians think of doping whistleblower?

Fearing for her safety, Russian 800m runner Yuliya Stepanova fled her country after she revealed the dirty secrets of doping in Russian athletics. She has been called the greatest whistleblower in the history of sport but what do people think of the athlete in her homeland?

 
 
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BBC Online - The Dutch prison crisis: A shortage of prisoners

While the UK and much of the world struggles with overcrowded prisons, the Netherlands has the opposite problem. It is actually short of people to lock up. In the past few years 19 prisons have closed down and more are slated for closure next year. How has this happened - and why do some people think it's a problem?

 
 
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Guardian- Bolshoi Confidential review, where scandal waits in the wings

Simon Morrison’s intoxicating history of the Bolshoi Ballet suggests that the recent acid attack on its artistic director was far from an aberration

 
 
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BBC Online - Inside France's 'boot camp' for wavering radicals

Under pressure to tackle home-grown jihadism, the French government is opening a string of rehabilitation centres to combat extremism - and the first one is already proving controversial.

 
 
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BBC Online Colombia - Raped for speaking out against rape

A Colombian woman who denounced armed groups for sexually abusing women and girls was abducted by the militants and subjected to a terrible punishment. Her story illustrates just how much power lies in the hands of armed men in Colombia - despite a ceasefire by the left-wing Farc rebels - and how lawless some parts of the country remain.

 
 
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Chatham House The World Today - Romania’s Sheep Bites Back

On the surface the Romanian countryside is in rude health. Since 2010, thanks to European Union and government subsidies, the number of sheep has almost doubled.

 
 
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BBC Online - The real crime-fighting 'Charlie's Angels'

Three women have become the scourge of Macedonia's political elite and heroines of the street protests now rocking the tiny Balkan nation - some call them the country's Charlie's Angels.

 
 
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BBC News-

Robert Menard: France's strongest far-right mayor

A mayor in the south of France has been accused of turning his city into a laboratory of the far right. But what is driving Robert Menard and why is he becoming the most controversial mayor in the country?

 
 
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BBC Online - Risking death at sea to escape boredom

Many people trying to start a new life in Europe want to escape war or extreme poverty, but large numbers of young Algerians are willing to risk death crossing the Mediterranean because they are bored and fed up with the lack of opportunities at home.

 
 
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Telegraph - The Truth Behind The Rape of Berlin

German prisoners of war in Berlin in early 1945 (Timofey Melnik/German-Russian Museum) Two remarkably candid diaries from spring 1945 help to shed some light on what really happened. The first is by Vladimir Gelfand who was a Jewish lieutenant from central Ukraine.

 
 
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BBC Online - Russia's most daring theatre company

A fearless Russian drama company has risen from the dead after being evicted from its premises in Moscow this winter. The eviction seemed at first to be a political death sentence, but does a theatre with barely 100 seats really present a threat to the Kremlin?

 
 
 
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New Statesman - No chickening out for activists subject to intimidation in Kiev

Tetiana Chornovol specialises in exposing the murky world of Ukraine’s top officials. As an investigative reporter for opposition websites, she has a reputation for unorthodox methods and daring stunts. On Christmas Day 2013, she was dragged out of her car, beaten up and almost killed in an attack most Ukrainians believe was linked to her work as a journalist.

 
 
 
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Mail on Sunday- 'There is no one to protect us': A human rights campaigner's chilling last interview

Award-winning human rights activist Natalia Estemirova was determined to expose some of the shocking abuses taking place in Chechnya - but just weeks after giving this moving interview Natalia's bullet-riddled body was found by the side of a road.

 
 
 
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Index on Censorship - Chechnya's rebuilding masks a new wave of repression

he killing of Natalia Estemirova is a sign of the republic’s drift into lawlessness and violence under President Kadyrov, writes Lucy Ash.

 
 
 
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New Statesman - Dictators: Central Asia’s new idol

From billboards to TV screens to bottles of vodka, there is no escaping his pudgy features and Elvis-style backcombed hair. President Saparmurat Niyazov, who calls himself Turkmenbashi, or father of the Turkmen, has created the world’s most relentless personality cult after North Korea.