As Christmas Eve according to the Julian calendar arrived, Nadiya Savchenko, 34, was on the 20th day of her hunger strike. Her second hunger strike. She is protesting her illegal imprisonment in Russia after her abduction – more than a year and a half ago – from Ukraine by pro-Russian (or should we say Russian) forces.
Readers may remember that this courageous pilot, who was a volunteer with the Aidar Battalion and today is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, began her first hunger strike on December 13, 2014. It lasted 83 days. One year later, on December 18, 2015, to be precise, the ex-first lieutenant started another hunger strike to protest the continuing injustice of her case when a Russian court yet again extended her detention, now until April 16. Ms. Savchenko said she would continue her protest until the end of what is clearly a politically motivated trial, at which time she would go on a “dry” hunger strike, refusing both food and water.
Ms. Savchenko faces a sentence of up to 25 years in prison if found guilty. She is charged with complicity in the deaths of two Russian journalists and, remarkably, with illegally crossing the border – never mind that she was kidnapped with a sack over her head. If previous “trials” of other Ukrainian political prisoners held in Russia are any indication, she will be found guilty and will get a severe sentence. Filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and Oleksander Kolchenko, who opposed Russia’s annexation of Crimea, were tried as “terrorists” and on August 25, 2015, received sentences of 20 and 10 years, respectively. Moreover, the Russian Supreme Court on November 24, 2015, upheld those sentences. So, there are hardly any “ifs” in these sham trials that harken back to Soviet times.
Yes, there was some hope Ms. Savchenko would be released soon after the Minsk II agreement provided for “the release and exchange of hostages and illegally detained persons based on the principle of ‘all for all.’ ” However, just as the Minsk I provisions on freeing all hostages and illegally held persons were ignored, so too were those of the second Minsk accord. International pressure had no effect, as the U.S., Canada, the European Union, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the United Nations and others appealed on Ms. Savchenko’s behalf.
But Nadiya is a remarkably strong young woman. And she will not be bowed. She continues to wear a tryzub T-shirt in court and enters the courtroom declaring “Slava Ukraini!” Anna Nemtsova, writing in The Daily Beast, described her thus: “Everything about Nadiya Savchenko is a statement, the declaration of a fighter going to war: The strong posture of a trained soldier, the firm look in her piercing blue eyes, her comments, even her jokes. Savchenko, a national hero in her home country, an enemy and defendant in Russia, just keeps smiling, and thanks reporters and foreign diplomats for coming. Before the Russia-Ukrainian conflict in Crimea and Donbas, Savchenko was little known in the wider world, but Ukraine knew about her as its only woman veteran of the war in Iraq, where Ukrainian troops served as part of the ‘coalition of the willing.’ ”
The court in the town of Donetsk, Rostov region of Russia, is to resume hearing the Savchenko case on January 13, New Year’s Eve according to the Julian calendar. Please keep Nadiya Savchenko in your thoughts and prayers, and keep raising her case – and those of other political prisoners held by Russia – with your elected officials. Freedom for Nadiya in 2016!