Lawyer: Savchenko's health continues to deteriorate
Nadiya Savchenko’s lawyer, Ilya Novikov, reported a sharp deterioration in his client’s health, Current Time reported, with reference to Ukrainskaya Pravda.
Savchenko is on the 12th day of her dry hunger strike, but agreed to have IV fluids administered.
“If yesterday, Nadiya’s sister Verna had not persuaded her to agree to go on a drip, her condition would have been even more complicated,” Novikov stated.
Novikov stated that there was a possibility that Russia would agree to transfer Savchenko after a verdict has been reached by a court in Kiev on the case of Alexander Alexandrov and Evgeny Yerofeev, Russian soldiers who are being held in Ukraine. The verdict is expected to be delivered on April 18th.
Another of Savchenko’s lawyers, Mark Feygin, was more skeptical about the prospect of a prisoner exchange.
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.