Savchenko resumes hunger strike

MOSCOW – Ukrainian military pilot Nadia Savchenko says she has resumed her hunger strike in a Russian jail and is prepared to die if she is not released. She announced the decision in a letter from pretrial detention at Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina jail. “As of March 16, I am resuming the hunger strike until I am returned to Ukraine or until the last day of my life in Russia,” she wrote in the letter posted on Twitter by one of her lawyers, Mark Feigin. “I have no intention of changing my decision,” she wrote in a separate letter addressed to her lawyers. Ms. Savchenko, 33, lost about 20 kilograms after being drip-fed on glucose and vitamins alone during a hunger strike she began on December 13. She stopped the hunger strike on March 5, citing health concerns. (RFE/RL, with reporting by Agence France-Presse and Interfax)