Oksana Sokolovskaya, a lawyer for Russian military servicemen Yevgeny Yerofeyev, who was captured in eastern Ukraine in May this year, is skeptical about the possibility of his swap for Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko, whose trial started in the Rostov region of Russia on July 30.
“I am far from believing that such a swap is possible,” Sokolovskaya told Interfax on July 30.
Asked to substantiate her position, Sokolovskaya said, “First, this would be an unequal swap, and second, and besides, the Russian side is not prepared for it.”
Savchenko’s lawyer Mark Feygin had suggested earlier that Russian citizens Alexander Alexandrov and Yevgeny Yerofeyev, who were captured by the Ukrainian security forces following an exchange of fire in Luhansk Oblast, could be swapped for her client.
Sokolovskaya noted when commenting on this that, as she saw it, “this was the personal initiative of Savchenko’s defender, which has no substantiation.”
