Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko has identified one of her abductors – LPR leader Ihor Plotnitsky, and the pilot's defense lawyers will demand that he be interrogated.
“Nadia Savchenko saw on TV and identified one of her abductors. This is a former Zarya commander and the current head of the so-called LPR, Ihor Plotnitsky,” her Russian lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, wrote on Twitter on Oct. 29.
He also said that Savchenko had challenged the court decision to extend her detention.
“Savchenko appealed the decision to extend her detention. She sees as pressure the intention of the Russian authorities to open a new case against her,” Polozov wrote.
Lawyer Mark Feygin, in turn, wrote on Twitter that lawyers would demand Plotnitsky’s interrogation.
“Since the authorities will try Nadia under Article 322 of the Russian Criminal Code (illegal border crossing), then we will demand Plotnitsky’s interrogation in the Savchenko case,” Feygin said.
As reported, Feygin said on Oct. 28 that Russian investigators planned to try Savchenko for “illegal border crossing.”
Savchenko, a 31-year-old navigator, was fighting with the Aidar volunteer battalion in eastern Ukraine when she was captured by illegal armed units in June near the town of Schastia, a suburb of Luhansk. It turned out on July 8 that Savchenko was being held at a detention facility in Voronezh. On Sept. 24, her Russian defense lawyer Mark Feygin said that their client had been taken from Voronezh prison. Later, it became known that Savchenko was brought to detention center No. 6 in Moscow.
Savchenko denies her guilt and says she was abducted on Ukrainian territory.
On Oct. 27, the Basmanny Court of Moscow decided to extend the detention of the Ukrainian pilot until Febr. 13, 2015.
Savchenko topped the party ticket of the Batkivschyna Party led by ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the early parliamentary elections in Ukraine held on Oct. 26. According to preliminary reports, Batkivschyna overcomes the 5 percent electoral threshold.
