You're reading: Savchenko lawyer asks for other Ukrainian citizens convicted in Russia to be pardoned

Mark Feygin, a lawyer for Ukrainian servicewoman Nadiya Savchenko, has written an open letter to the Russian president calling on him to pardon other convicted Ukrainian citizens.

“The circumstances of the Savchenko pardon and her further exchange for Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov gave certain hopes for a solution of the situation with other Ukrainian citizens who remain in Russia. Among them are Yuriy Soloshenko, Hennadiy Afanasyev, Oleh Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko, Oleksy Chirniy, Mykola Karpiuk, Stanislav Klykh, Valentyn Vyhovskiy, Serhiy Lytvynov, Khaiser Jemilev, Oleksandr Kostenko, and some others,” Feygin told Interfax on Monday.

The Savchenko pardon “will fit in a unified system that will lead to the settlement of Russian-Ukrainian relations,” he said.

“The pardoning of the said citizens will, firstly, give us the return of the Russian citizens who are imprisoned in Ukraine, and their number is in the dozens, if not hundreds of servicemen and so-called volunteers, and, secondly, will promote fuller implementation of the Minsk agreements,” Feygin said.

The lawyer said that “the Ukrainian citizens who were convicted in Russia should be pardoned because the charges are obviously far-fetched and politically motivated.” “There is no point in delaying pardons anymore. For this reason, I call for the said citizens of Ukraine to be released (exchanged) now and thus put and end to all this,” Feygin said.