RFE/RL Ukrainian Service
A Moscow court has refused to release jailed Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, who has been on a hunger strike in a Russian prison since December.
Ms. Savchenko, who held the rank of first lieutenant, appeared in a Moscow court on March 4, the 82nd day of a hunger strike to protest her incarceration in Russia. The Basmanny district court was hearing her appeal against a ruling that barred her from attending a Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) session in Strasbourg in January.
She looked gaunt behind the metal bars of a courtroom cage.
Her lawyer Mark Feigin said on Twitter that the judge rejected a motion by prosecutors to hold the hearing behind closed doors.
Ms. Savchenko’s lawyers say it was illegal to bar the military pilot, who won a seat in Ukraine’s Parliament last year and was named a member of its PACE delegation, from attending the session in France. (She resigned from the military after her election to Ukraine’s Parliament.)
Ms. Savchenko says she was kidnapped by Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine in June of last year and illegally transferred to Russia, where she has been charged with involvement in the deaths of two journalists killed covering the conflict between the separatists and Ukrainian government forces.
She began a hunger strike on December 13, 2014, to protest the charges and her confinement in pretrial detention.
Ms. Savchenko’s sister, Vira, said on March 1 that she was “in a very bad state.”
In remarks on Twitter on March 3, Mr. Feigin said his client promised him she would end her hunger strike if her health became “completely terrible,” suggesting she would halt the protest if her life was in danger.
“I got her to say that when it becomes completely terrible, she will take heed and stop. She said this,” Mr. Feigin wrote. He said Ms. Savchenko promised “to remember that Ukrainians and Russians are urging her not to die.”
But he appeared to step back from that statement in comments to RFE/RL, saying only that Ms. Savchenko had “promised to think about this very seriously.” He called that “progress.”
Meanwhile, EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement on March 4 that Ms. Savchenko “faces permanent damage to her health, or death,” and called on Russia “to urgently release Ms. Savchenko on humanitarian grounds.”
In related news, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko awarded the country’s highest national honor, the title Hero of Ukraine, to Ms. Savchenko. In a statement on March 2, Mr. Poroshenko said: “Nadiya is a symbol of unbroken Ukrainian spirit and heroism, a symbol of the way one should defend and love Ukraine, a symbol of our victory.”
That same day, the Verkhovna Rada adopted an appeal to National Deputy Savchenko, calling on her to stop her hunger strike and save her life for future battles. The vote was 329 votes in favor (out of 349 national deputies registered as present).
Sources: RFE/RL, official website of the Verkhovna Rada.