Special to The Ukrainian Weekly
OTTAWA – Seven months after being released from a Russian prison, Nadiya Savchenko – one of Ukraine’s first female military pilots who captured international attention after she was captured by pro-Russian forces on Ukrainian soil in 2014, and later charged and convicted of murder by a court in Moscow – came to Canada to warn that Russia poses a serious threat not only to Ukraine, but also beyond its borders.
Earlier this month, the 35-year-old, Kyiv-born member of the Verkhovna Rada was in Ottawa where she met with two senior members of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet, Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion and International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland. As a Ukrainian Canadian, Ms. Freeland has kept a close eye on Russian encroachment on Ukraine.
Following his December 1 meeting with Ms. Savchenko, Mr. Dion tweeted that he had a “moving discussion” with her, and that he “commend[s] her strength [and] courage while [she was] illegally detained in Russia.”
Ms. Savchenko conveyed some of that strength in an exclusive interview with veteran Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) journalist Terry Milewski.
“I want Canada to be relentless in supporting human rights and political rights in Russia and in Ukraine,” she told Mr. Milewski. “And you need to be strong in how you deliver that message to Russia, because Russia only understands the language of strength.”
Sporting the same cropped haircut she had while serving as a lieutenant in the Ukrainian armed forces (a look that punctuates the image of “Joan of Arc,” as she has been labeled by those who hail her as a Ukrainian hero), Ms. Savchenko said that while the reputation Canadians have of being “so polite” and “so nice” is “an advantage in many respects,” it is a “disadvantage when you have to deal with a bully like Russia.”
She also had a message for Donald Trump, who while on the presidential campaign trail last July said that it would be “nice” if the United States “got along” with Russia.
“Whoever thinks you can have a normal, warm relationship with Russia will very soon find out that you cannot have a warm relationship with a country that has no principles, that doesn’t respect other democratic rights,” Ms. Savchenko said during her CBC interview. “And soon, Trump will find out that is the case.”
She warned that if the West does not stand firm against Russia, its ambitions in eastern Ukraine could lead to a full-scale invasion with a potential reach as far as the United Kingdom.
“We need to have principles to stand up for” and the “foresight into the future to prevent [the] types of conflict” that led to the first and second world wars, said Ms. Savchenko, who is also a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. “If we don’t have that type of long-term vision, we are facing World War III.”
She expressed similar fears in a letter she sent to Mr. Trump following his electoral victory last month, suggesting that he has “all possibilities to prevent” a third world war.
In the letter, which she posted on her Facebook page, Ms. Savchenko urged the president-elect to support Ukraine, “and not leave it one on one with the aggressor [Russia],” because history shows that when the global “community adhered to the policy of appeasement,” the result was “the biggest catastrophe of [the] 20th century.”
“I appeal to you with the kindly request to maintain and even strengthen sanctions [against the] Russian Federation because this country understands only force and resolve that you really have personally and your country has a World Leader,” she wrote.
Ms. Savchenko also called for diplomatic, technical and military support for Ukraine – and from the Trump administration in particular, to help free Ukrainians detained in Russian prisons.
“As the world… advocated for my release, so now I would like to help them by raising awareness about their plight, too,” she said.
U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were part of the global effort that made Ms. Savchenko a symbol of Ukrainian resistance against Russia.
Her case put a human face to that struggle.
Sentenced to 22 years in jail for allegedly killing two Russian state-TV journalists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine (despite reports that she was abducted by an armed pro-Russian militant group one hour before the deaths occurred), Ms. Savchenko spent 708 days behind bars – most of it in solitary confinement and 83 days of that time on a hunger strike that nearly killed her.
But she was defiant during her trial in Moscow, giving the judge the finger and singing Ukraine’s national anthem while locked in a steel cage.
She was defiant during her incarceration, drafting a bill to give anyone sentenced to prison credit for time served in custody while awaiting trial, which Ukraine’s Parliament passed into law in December 2015.
Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party successfully ran Ms. Savchenko as a candidate for the Verkhovna Rada, and President Petro Poroshenko awarded her the Hero of Ukraine medal.
Ms. Savchenko told the CBC’s Mr. Milewski that she is ready to serve her country “in any capacity, either as soldier, politician or president, as long as people want,” but that she is “not interested in the presidency for the sake of power.”
All of her involvement in politics, she said, “is a way to change politics in itself,” adding, “I am disappointed in the politics we have right now and politics as usual we’ve had for the last 25 years that has led us to nowhere.”
But at least in terms of her warnings about Russia, Ms. Savchenko is on the same page as the current Ukrainian government.
During a visit to Ottawa last week when he met with Canadian Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov expressed misgivings about Canada’s diplomatic re-engagement with Russia in a CBC News interview.
“The issue is not about being kind to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and giving him cookies,” he told senior defense writer Murray Brewster. “It is about demonstrating a firm position.”