The condition of Ukrainian helicopter pilot Nadezhda Savchenko is worsening as uncertainty over her possible release from a Russian prison remains.
Savchenko, jailed in Russia’s Rostov Oblast, was put on a drip to thin her blood and ease dehydration symptoms after 11 days of a dry hunger strike.
According to her sister, Vira Savchenko, during a visit on April 16, it became clear that the jailed Ukrainian pilot urgently needs medical aid.
“She is having intravenous infusion drips but the veins are so fragile that they break,” she said on Ukraine’s 112 channel.
Savchenko has refused both water and food since April 6, after the verdict by a Russian court took effect. She promises to starve herself to death if not returned to Ukraine soon.
The judges sentenced her to a 22-year prison term for allegedly killing two Russian journalists in June 2014 in eastern Ukraine’s war zone. Savchenko said she would not recognize the verdict. The court ignored numerous evidence which proved that she physically could not have committed the crime.
The pilot’s mother Maria Savchenko called on Ukrainian leadership to hurry up with her daughter’s release.
“She has been tortured for two years but I hope that she will return home. Poroshenko said that he is working 24 hours for Nadia, let god that he really worked,” she said during a rally in support of Savchenko in central Kyiv on April 17. “Her sister visited Nadia, asked her to stop her hunger strike, but it is impossible to dissuade Nadia, she has an iron character of a warrior.”
No hurry in talks
During an annual questions and answers session on April 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow and Kyiv are “in contact” over Savchenko’s future.
“Our partners know our position but it is better not to get ahead of time in these questions,” Putin said.
The pilot’s attorney, Mark Feygin, does not expect that his client will be released anytime soon.
He said that she is likely to be exchanged for two Russian officers Aleksandr Aleksandrov and Yevgeniy Yerofeev, who were captured during combat in eastern Ukrainian Luhansk region in May 2015. However, their verdict is scheduled for April 18 and the sentence will take effect only a month later.
“We should not expect the unilateral release of Savchenko by Putin until Yerofeev and Aleksandrov are sent to Russia,” Feygin tweeted on April 16.
President Petro Poroshenko said in an address to the nation on March 22, that his Russian counterpart promised to return the pilot to Ukraine after she is sentenced. He has also confirmed that Savchenko will be exchanged for the captured Russian officers.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Savchuk can be reached at [email protected]
