Moscow - The U.S. embassy to Russia calls for the immediate release the Ukrainian military pilot Nadia Savchenko arrested by Russian investigators, an embassy spokesperson told Interfax on Thursday, July 10.
The U.S. embassy is aware of Nadia Savchenko’s illegal detention and condemns her detention by the Ukrainian separatists, her illegal transfer to the Russian authorities and her continued apprehension, the spokesperson said.
Savchenko, a 31-year-old navigator, served with the Ukrainian peacekeeping force in Iraq, after which she graduated from the Ivan Kozhedub Kharkiv Air Force University in 2009.
She was fighting with the Aidar volunteer battalion in eastern Ukraine when she was captured in June near the town of Shastia, a suburb of Luhansk.
It was reported on Wednesday, July 9 that Savchenko is being held at a detention facility in Voronezh and has been indicted for complicity in murder. “Investigative bodies have indicted Savchenko for complicity in the killing of VGTRK journalists outside Luhansk,” a spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee said.
The Russian Investigative Committee claims that Savchenko was detained in Russia after crossing the border without documents under the guise of a refugee.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has issued an official protest against what it sees as Savchenko’s illegal transfer to Russian territory.
