Poroshenko urges US and EU leaders to put pressure on Moscow to release Savchenko
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko urged the leaders US and EU to increase pressure on Russia in order to secure the release of imprisoned Ukrainian pilot, Nadiya Savchenko.
"Ukraine has sent a letter to the EU and the US to increase pressure on Russia to release Nadiya Savchenko," Poroshenko wrote on his Twitter page on Monday.
Savchenko’s health has deteriorated since going on a dry hunger strike on March 3rd.
"She is determined to be present in court on March 9th, and [wants to] have the final say, despite the fact that the symptoms of the dry hunger strike already being felt … tachycardia, swollen legs, impaired thermoregulation," Savchenko’s lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, wrote on his Facebook page.
Nadiya Savchenko has been charged with the murder of two Russian journalists. 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.
On March 2nd, the prosecutor’s office requested that she be sentenced to 23 years in a penal colony plus a fine of 100,000 rubles ($1,400).
Savchenko declared a dry hunger strike starting March 3rd after the Donetsk City Court in the Rostov region announced that she would not be given a chance to make her final closing statement during a court hearing.