Member of Parliament from the Batkivschyna Party's parliamentary faction Nadiya Savchenko has announced a hunger strike to expedite the release of Ukrainians held in captivity in Russia and occupied Donbas.
“I’ve tried many methods of fighting for the guys – the way the world had been fighting for me. Now I’ll fight for them the way I had been fighting for myself. One of the ways to speed up the release was the protest in the form of hunger strike against the Ukrainian authorities’ inactivity. Starting now, I am on a hunger strike to protest the inactivity of the authorities of the entire world in regard to the release of captive Ukrainians,” she said at a press conference in Kyiv on August 2.
“The hunger strike will continue until it yields positive results,” she added.
Later, answering a question from a journalist about the date when she stopped eating, she answered: “I’ve had breakfast today, it will start tomorrow.”
Savchenko in June 2014 was captured by militants in Donbas. She claimed she was forcibly taken to Russia. She was convicted by the Russian Donetsk city court in Rostov region “for her involvement in the murder of VGTRK journalists” and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
On May 25, 2016, she was swapped for Russian special forces officers Yevgeniy Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov, who were captured by Ukrainian armed forces and convicted in Ukraine. The swap was formalized as a pardon by Russian President Vladimir Putin, while two Russian officers were pardoned by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
While in captivity in Russia, Savchenko declared hunger strikes several times. On December 13, 2014, she announced an indefinite hunger strike since she had not been provided medical care.
Subsequently he decided to continue the hunger strike demanding his release from prison, at least in the form of changing a measure of restraint.
To maintain her health, she had glucose injections until she refused them on February 19, 2015. On March 5, 2015, Savchenko partially stopped the hunger strike. The reason for this was the sharp deterioration of her health condition in the last four days of the hunger strike. On March 14, she was visited by Ukrainian doctors, who changed her diet and treatment for quitting the hunger strike.
On March 16, Savchenko announced the resumption of the hunger strike. In late April, doctors met to decide on Savchenko’s further treatment, and she was transferred to a municipal hospital due to the worsening of her health.
On March 3, 2016, she declared a new hunger strike until the end of the litigation due to the fact she was not allowed to announce her last word. She terminated the hunger strike on March 10, 2016, after receiving a fake letter allegedly written by President Poroshenko, who later was proved to be a prank.
