You're reading: Voronezh region’s court leaves pilot Savchenko in custody

Voronezh - The Voronezh region's court considered an appeal filed by the defense lawyers for Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko and made a decision o keep her in custody until Aug. 30, thus upholding the decision made by the Novousmansky district court.

Mark Feygin, a lawyer for Savchenko, earlier said the defense lawyers
intended to seek Savchenko’s release from custody. On Friday, July 25, he asked
the court to release his client on a 500,000 rubles bail.

It was reported earlier that 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. She has not admitted her guilt
and claimed that she had been abducted from Ukrainian territory.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has instructed the Prosecutor
General’s Office and the Security Service to look into the circumstances
of Savchenko’s transfer to Russian territory. Poroshenko also
instructed the Foreign Ministry and other government agencies to take
every possible measure to secure the Ukrainian pilot’s unconditional
release by Russia and her return home.