People across Ukraine took to the streets to support Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko, imprisoned in Russia on false murder charges. Protesters early on March 6 and after the rally also vandalized cars near the Russian Embassy in Kyiv and threw eggs at the embassy grounds.
An estimated 1,000 Ukrainians gathered on Independence Square, Kyiv’s central square, to support and demand that the Kremlin immediately release Savchenko, who has been imprisoned for 20 months and who faces 23 years in prison if convicted of murdering two journalists in the war zone in Luhansk Oblast in June 2014.
Savchenko went on a complete hunger strike on March 4, ahead of her March 9 court date. She was elected to the Ukrainian parliament in October 2014.
Mark Feigin, Savchenko’s attorney, believes she can be released to Ukraine later this month in exchange for Russian security forces officer Yevgeniy Yerofeev and Aleksandr Aleksandrov, captured in Ukraine’s Luhansk Oblast in May 2015.
Even Savchenko’s relatives think she will stick to her fast.
“I would do exactly like she is doing now,” Nadia’s mother Maria Savchenko told the Kyiv Post. “How can we act differently with bandits?” She compared her daughter with Prometheus, the deity in Greek mythology who sacrificed himself to benefit and inspire mankind. “Nadia is doing the same. One soul is dying, so the nation survives and defeats the bandits,” she said.
The 78-year-old woman wrote letters to world leaders to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to free her daughter. During her meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on March 4, she got promises that the diplomatic efforts to release Savchenko will be intensified.
Viktoria Blazhenko, a Kyiv resident who joined the rally, told the Kyiv Post that she came to the rally because it may be the last chance to help Savchenko.
“She is a symbol of our fight, freedom, and our crucified Ukraine,” Blazhenko said. “It is obligatory to help her.”
Violence near Russia Embassy
Up to 200 people carrying posters and Ukrainian flags came to the Russia Embassy to Ukraine in Kyiv to demand the release of Nadia Savchenko and other political prisoners.
According to the Ukrainian human rights initiative Let My People Go, 25 Ukrainians are jailed in Russia on political motives.
During the rally, a group of men with a Ukrainian lawmaker from the Radical Party, Igor Mosiychuk among them, showered the building of the diplomatic mission with eggs and bottles with green disinfectant. Two men in military fatigues jumped over the fence to the embassy’s yard, broke a window and a camera and ran away.
The night prior to March 6, the territory of the Russia Embassy was attacked by masked men in military fatigues who threw smoke bombs and flares in the embassy’s yard, damaging three cars from the diplomatic mission.
Following the incident, the Russia Embassy to Ukraine sent a note of protest to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
Later video allegedly featuring the attack appeared on the Internet where the incident was attributed to a protest against the detention of Savchenko and other political prisoners.
Demonstrations in Savchenko’s support were held in other Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv, Odesa and Ternopil.
#FreeSavchenko worldwide action day will take place on March 9, the day that the court’s sentencing is scheduled. Lawyers of the imprisoned pilot asked Ukrainians across the world to rally and write letters of support to their authorities and Russian diplomatic missions to demand her release.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Savchuk can be reached at [email protected]
