Russia’s case against Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko reached a new level of absurdity as the defense’s key witness, Vira Savchenko, was denied entry to the country to testify – while Kremlin-backed separatist leaders with criminal records were allowed to cross the border with no problems.
Vira Savchenko, Nadiya Savchenko’s sister, announced the news on her
Facebook page on Oct. 13, saying Russian border guards had forbidden her entry
and told her she had been banned from Russia for five years at the “initiative
of the Federal Security Service of Russia.”
“Maybe the FSB will also forbid Ihor Plotnitsky from entering Russia?”
she wrote, referring to the Kremlin puppet in charge of the occupied part of
Luhansk Oblast, who announced plans to testify in her sister’s case on Oct. 14.
In comments to the Kyiv Post, Vira Savchenko said she was more worried
about the “human perspective” of the ban.
“I simply can’t be unable to see Nadiya; I can’t let that happen,” she
said, adding that she planned to try entering Russia again on Oct. 19 after
appealing the ban.
She was given no comprehensible explanation, she said, apart from the
fact that she was “in a database of banned individuals and it was an initiative
of the FSB.”
A request for comment sent to Russia’s KGB-successor agency was not
immediately answered.
“Of course, they can let terrorists in, but not decent, ordinary people
like me,” she said.
On Oct. 15 a separatist leader Yegor Russky was allowed to testify
against the Ukrainian pilot, despite having a series of misdemeanor convictions
in Russia and massive debts.
Mark Feygin, one of Nadiya Savchenko’s lawyers, described the ban as part
of a larger “game” being waged against the defense by Russian authorities.
“Experience shows that something like this doesn’t just happen for any reason.
There is some sort of idiotism going on,” Feygin said, adding that he thought
the goal of the ban was to “put psychological pressure on Nadiya Savchenko and
her entire defense team.”
“In a normal case, this would be very bad, because prohibiting the one
and only witness from testifying would cause major damage to the defense’s
case. But in the Russian courts, honestly speaking, it doesn’t even matter,” he
said, describing the trial as a show in which everyone already knows the
outcome.
“Both the Kremlin and the international community know (Nadiya) Savchenko
isn’t really guilty … even a child could see what really happened,” Feygin
said, referring to the events of June 27, 2014, when the Ukrainian pilot
supposedly participated in the killing of two Russian journalists in eastern
Ukraine.
If found guilty, the elected Batkivshchyna Party lawmaker and Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe delegate faces up to 25 years in prison.
At the same time, Feygin believes that the FSB’s ban against Vira
Savchenko may end up playing in the defense’s favor, because it may prompt a
harsh response from the international community, which has already largely
condemned Russia’s handling of the case.
“The more pressure that is put on the Kremlin and on Russia (over the
case), the more chances there are (Nadiya) Savchenko will be released and let
out of Russia,” he said.
Ukrainian human rights activist Halya Coynash agreed that the ban may
trigger further international condemnation, but said “the level of lawlessness
is such that how much it will impact” isn’t clear.
Coynash noted that similar tactics were used against Crimean Tatar
leaders in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula. Crimean Tatar
leaders Mustafa Dzhemiliev and Refat Chubarov were met at the border while
trying to return home and told that they were banned for five years for reasons
of national security.
The Donetsk City Court in Russia’s Rostov Oblast is set to send the FSB
an official request seeking clarification on the ban against Vira Savchenko,
Feygin said, though he said he was not sure it would make much difference.
Even if the FSB upholds the ban, he said, the court has the “exclusive
right” to invite a witness in a criminal trial.
Nikolai Polozov, another lawyer for Nadiya Savchenko, left little hope
that common sense would prevail in the court, however.
“In the hallway of the court, civilians are standing with pistols and
machine guns,” Polozov wrote on Twitter on Oct. 15, as he live-tweeted scenes
from the latest hearing against Nadiya Savchenko.
Meanwhile, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said on Oct. 15 he
had no idea why Vira Savchenko had been barred from entering Russia.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has sent Russia an official note of protest
over the matter, and said in a statement issued late on Oct. 13 that the ban
was a “reprisal against an innocent victim of the Kremlin’s aggressive
policies.”
Staff writer Allison
Quinn can be reached at [email protected]
