Ukrainian lawmaker and former military pilot Nadia Savchenko showed up at a court hearing in Moscow on Oct. 26, surprising many.
Savchenko was Ukraine’s most high-profile political prisoner, jailed in Russia on the charges of assisting a murder. She was pardoned and returned to Ukraine in May after several hunger strikes and lengthy negotiations between the countries’ leadership.
But on Oct. 26, she willingly went back into Russia.
Savchenko came to Moscow to visit the Russian Supreme Court hearing of the appeal in the case of Ukrainians Stanyslav Klykh and Mykola Karpiuk.
The two were sentenced to 20 and 22 years of prison for allegedly fighting against Russian forces in the First Chechen War in the 1990s. Both deny the charges.
The hearing wasn’t successful for the defense: The Supreme Court left the verdict standing, keeping the Ukrainians in prison.
Nadia Savchenko talks to the reporters in Russia’s Supreme Court in Moscow on Oct. 26. (Ilya Novikov/Facebook)
Many were astonished that Savchenko risked going back to Russia after she was released from a Russian prison on a pardon of President Vladimir Putin. She says she did it to support the Ukrainian prisoners.
“Even if I don’t return from Russia alive, I have to go there and support our fellow Ukrainians at the trial,” Savchenko said in a video address uploaded to her social media pages.
Ilya Novikov, a Russian lawyer of Klykh and Karpiuk, who used to represent Savchenko during her trial, said he helped Savchenko get into Russia.
“Thanks to her, there was so much more attention to the case of Klykh and Karpiuk today,” Novikov said. “Karpiuk and Klykh thanked her for coming.”
According to Novikov, Savchenko wasn’t let into Russia easily.
She first tried to go by car through Belarus during the night of Oct. 25, but wasn’t allowed to cross the border into Russia.
After that, she drove back to Minsk and took a flight to Moscow, succeeding this time. Ukraine banned the direct flights from Kyiv to Moscow in September 2015.
One of those shocked by Savchenko’s decision to go back to Russia was Ukrainian Hennadii Afanasiev, another former political prisoner who was released as a result of a prisoner exchange with Russia in June, shortly after Savchenko went free.
“Savchenko in Moskovia? Am I seeing it right? I can’t wrap my head around it,” he wrote on his Facebook page on Oct. 26, reacting to the photos of Savchenko in Moscow being posted online.
Savchenko’s sister Vira Savchenko, who has been her vocal defender, said that her sister is simply being “humane and brave” and went to the hearing to attract the world’s attention to the prosecution of Ukrainians by Russian authorities.
Kyiv Post staff writer Veronika Melkozerova contributed to this story.
