You're reading: Tymoshenko calls on Rada to urgently make Savchenko PACE delegate

Batkivschyna faction leader Yulia Tymoshenko has called on the parliament to urgently form a Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), and to make pilot Nadia Savchenko a member.

“We must consider on Tuesday a resolution delegating Nadia Savchenko as a member of PACE so that we can draft an appeal to all international structures, starting with PACE, the OSCE, Red Cross and European Parliament asking them to get involved so that not just Nadia Savchenko, but everyone held captive in Russia is released immediately. We have to step up our efforts because they may not come out alive,” Yulia Tymoshenko said during today’s parliamentary coordinating council meeting.

The leader of the Batkivschyna faction justified the urgency due to Russia’s plans to potentially reinstitute the death penalty. “The situation with the detention of Nadia Savchenko and other military prisoners held in Russia is deteriorating sharply. They are working behind closed doors on changes to Russian legislation on the death penalty,” she said.

“Our heroes that are currently in Russian prisons are in serious danger. This doesn’t just concern their detention or threats to their health, it’s now about threats to their life,” Tymoshenko said.

For his part, the leader of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko’s faction Yuriy Lutsenko offered to determine the full membership of the Ukrainian PACE delegation this plenary week.

Another hearing in the case of Ukrainian MP Nadia Savchenko is to take place today in Moscow, where the defense is to present its appeal over the legality of her detention.

Savchenko went on a hunger strike on Dec. 15, in response to the prison’s failure to provide her with medical care. She has lost some hearing since being imprisoned.

Nadia Savchenko has been held captive in Russia for half a year on bogus charges that she was involved in the death of Russian journalists in Donbas.