You're reading: Ukrainian army officer Savchenko terminates hunger strike

Nadiya Savchenko, Ukrainian army officer imprisoned in Moscow, has terminated her 80-day hunger strike.

After spending 2.5 months on glucosis and amino acid injections only, Savchenko has agreed to eat chicken broth on March 5. In a letter she passed with her lawyer she explains that she will be eating the broth “for some time” to survive.
Earlier Savchenko has said she will not stop the strike until the Russian court changes her detention to house arrest. She attributes the change of mind to the support she’s been receiving.
“On your demand, out of gratitude for your support, for you I will stay alive,” she wrote in a letter on March 5.
Savchenko was taken captive by Russia-backed separatists in Luhansk Oblast in June of 2014. Within the next month she was smuggled to Russia and given to Russian authorities. She is charged with involvement in a mortar attack that killed two Russian journalists in Donbas, and with illegal crossing of the Russian border.
By court decision Savchenko is under arrest till May 13. Her lawyers appealed the decision twice and were refused.
During the time of her hunger strike Savchenko has lost approximately 15 kilograms of her weight. Savchenko’s current weight, 55 kilograms, is far below the norm for her height of 176 centimeters.
During her imprisonment in Russia, Savchenko has received a wide support in Ukraine. She was elected to Ukrainian parliament in absentia and made Ukrainian delegate to the Parliament Assembly of the Council of Europe.
At the latest court hearing on March 4 Savchenko appealed her arrest on the grounds of the immunity that she has as a PACE delegate, but the Moscow court rejected the appeal.
On March 4 Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko has sent an official letter to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, demanding to release Savchenko. There was no response yet.
Earlier Poroshenko said that Savchenko’s release was one of the conditions of the latest peace agreement made in Minsk on Feb. 12. However, there was no improvement of Savchenko’s situation since then.

Kyiv Post editor Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].