Karina Orlova: What lies behinds Putin’s ‘humanitarian gesture’ towards Savchenko?
Ukrainian Air Force pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, who was captured and held in Russia for two years, and who was recently convicted in a show trial for the murder of two Russian war correspondents, was granted amnesty by Vladimir Putin and returned to Kyiv on May 25. The release was done in secrecy and became public only after President Petro Poroshenko’s jet, with Savchenko on board, landed in Kyiv. Rumors had circulated that Poroshenko's jet had landed in Rostov-on-Don earlier in the day.