The United States is urging the Russian authorities to stop court proceedings regarding Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko, the U.S. embassy in Moscow said.
“We are urging Russia to stop this groundless court proceeding and to release Nadia Savchenko and all other Ukrainian citizens being held hostage immediately,” press attache of the U.S. embassy in Russia Will Stevens told Interfax.
“We would like to confirm its stance that there should be no trial at all over Savchenko,” he said.
According to the U.S. embassy representative, Washington’s stance is that Savchenko “is still being held in Russia as a hostage after she has been abducted in Ukraine.”
The necessity to free Savchenko is conditioned by “Russia’s obligations taken upon signing Minsk agreement in September 2014 and signing the plan on implementation of Minsk agreements on Feb. 12, 2015,” Stevens said.
“Diplomats of the U.S. embassy in Moscow joined the group of diplomats from some other countries to observe the preliminary hearings on Savchenko’s case in the Russian city of Donetsk,” the U.S. embassy said.
According to the information of Interfax, besides U.S. diplomats, counterparts from Canada, the UK, Norway, Austria, Ukraine and the European Union observe the court proceedings over the case of the Ukrainian pilot in Donetsk (the Rostov region) as well.
Savchenko is in Russia since July 2014 under arrest on the accusations of assisting the murders of Russian reporters Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin in the Luhansk Oblast.
She does not admit guilt.
Preliminary hearings on Savchenko’s case began in the Donetsk city court on July 30.
