Vol. 80/No. 12      March 28, 2016

 

Worldwide protests demand Moscow free
Nadiya Savchenko

 
Demonstrations took place in more than 100 cities around the world March 6-9 demanding freedom for Ukrainian pilot Lt. Nadiya Savchenko from Russian prison. Savchenko, 34, is being put through a show trial in Donetsk, Russia, on frame-up charges of “complicity” in the death of two Russian journalists in June 2014 because of her “political hatred” for Moscow, and of sneaking into Russia. If convicted she faces 23 years in jail. She is on a hunger strike against her treatment.

Savchenko took part in the popular Maidan mobilizations two years ago that forced out the pro-Moscow regime of Victor Yanukovych. After Moscow annexed Crimea and backed armed separatists who have seized sections of the eastern regions in Ukraine of Donetsk and Luhansk, she volunteered to fight against the separatists. On June 17, 2014, she was captured, taken across the border into Russia and held in detention for more than 600 days.

Savchenko denies all of the charges against her, which Moscow has shifted several times. Prosecutors claim she helped direct mortar fire at a checkpoint where the two journalists died. Her lawyers presented evidence this occurred after she was captured by pro-Moscow separatists.

“I don’t believe you have a right to try me, and certainly not in a Russian court,” she declared Feb. 1 during the trial. “I am a soldier,” she said. “You are treating me like a murderer.”

During her imprisonment, Savchenko has been interrogated without a lawyer present, denied consular visits, and barred from receiving letters, books and visitors. In court, she testified inside a glass cage.

Actions demanding her freedom took place in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities; in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where protesters were arrested by Russian authorities; across Europe; and in New York, Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities in the U.S.

“I admire the Russians who are protesting inside Russia demanding her release,” Olga Espero, a Ukrainian, told the Militant at a March 12 protest outside the Russian Embassy in London. Savchenko was “captured by Russian forces who should never have been in Ukraine.”

Savchenko, who was elected to both the Ukrainian and European parliaments while imprisoned, is reportedly getting weaker, but as part of her closing statement at trial March 9 she sang the Ukrainian national anthem and gave the judge the finger.

Dozens of Ukrainian political prisoners are being held in Russia and Crimea, including Crimean filmmaker Oleg Sentsov; Gennady Afanasyev, who was tortured into incriminating Sentsov but recanted his testimony at trial; Crimean Tatar Mejlis (parliament) leader Akhtem Chiygiz; and many more Tatars.
 
 
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