Nadia Savchenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker and envoy to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, has been extra-judiciously detained in Russia for an additional six months.
Held hostage since July, the former Ukrainian
air force pilot had an inquest extended until mid-November by a Moscow court on
May 5.
The U.S. State Department called the jail
extension “callous and outrageous.”
America and Ukraine believe she should’ve been
released after the September and February peace agreements that were sealed in
Minsk, Belarus to halt hostilities in the Donbas.
They cite article six of the latest deal: “To ensure the release and
exchange of hostages and illegally detained persons based on the principle of ‘all
for all.’”
Speaking at a briefing in Washington, D.C. on
May 5, State Department spokesperson Jeff Rathke said that “we call on Russia to release Nadia Savchenko and all other Ukrainian
hostages immediately, a commitment Russia made when it signed the Minsk agreements in September
of last year and again on February 12th of
this year when it signed the Minsk implementation plan.”
Earlier, the European Parliament at its
plenary session in Strasbourg on April 30 adopted a resolution condemning
Russia for illegally holding Savchenko in detention and warned it of possible
international sanctions.
Moscow authorities maintain Savchenko is
guilty of killing two Russian journalists in June 2014 while serving in the
Aidar Batallion in Luhansk Oblast. According to their version, she had
subsequently crossed into Russia illegally while posing as a war refugee in
July.
Elected to the Verkhovna Rada in October,
Savchcenko has denied the accusations. Kremlin-backed separatists took her
captive and illegally transported her from Ukraine to Russia where she was
taken into custody beyond the authority of the court, according to the Ukrainian PACE
delegate.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry was outraged by the
Moscow court ruling in a statement released on May 5. It said it was “yet
another sign of the lack of any evidence in support for the absurd and
groundless accusations against Nadia.”
A Moscow district court on May 6 is hearing her
appeal on the decision to extend her arrest and whether to allow her to attend
a PACE session scheduled in June.
Nikolay Polozov, one of Savchenko’s lawyers,
said in his Twitter post that the ultimate goal of the Russian authorities is
not to “investigate the case, but break Nadia’s spirit, to break spirit of
Ukraine.”
Alex Ryabchyn, a lawmaker from Batkivshyna
party tweeted from Moscow that Savchenko was already brought to the court and
the hearing had started 50 minutes later than scheduled.
The pilot from Kyiv has been weakened by a continuous
hunger strike over the winter and has developed a number of related illnesses,
her lawyers say. On April 28, she was transferred to a Moscow city civilian
hospital because of her deteriorating health. Days later she was brought back
to her prison cell.
In the meantime, another attorney Savchenko’s, Mark Feigin called on activists to support her and take part in a global
FreeSavchenko rally on May 11. She will turn 34 that day.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected].
