Savchenko files paperwork to begin transfer procedure
Nadiya Savchenko has filed the documents necessary to be transferred to Ukraine, according to her sister Vera, Interfax-Ukraine reported.
"She now filled out the documents: application, biographical data, etc. In the words of the prison warden Kalgan, they are necessary for the extradition. She was told that the documents should be completed for the extradition procedure. Let us hope that this is the case,” Vera Savchenko told the TSN television network.
Last month, a Russian court found Savchenko guilty of complicity in the killing of two Russian journalists and sentenced her to 22 years in prison.
The judge in the Russian town of Donetsk said Savchenko had been driven by "political hatred".
"A propaganda machine is at work here, absent of justice and freedom," Savchenko’s lawyer wrote on Twitter.
It is widely believed that Savchenko was in fact captured by Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) separatists in eastern Ukraine and was illegally transported to Russia, where the case was fabricated against her.
Savchenko was elected to the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada in absentia in October of 2014 and became an official delegate of the PACE several months later.
Rallies in support of her immediate release have taken place in Ukraine, Russia and other countries around the World, and many Western leaders consider the case to be little more than a show trial.
Currently, Moscow and Kiev are negotiating a transfer which would see Savchenko exchanged for two Russian soldiers being held in Ukraine.