13:28 25.09.2014

Ukrainian president's administration protests pilot Savchenko's transfer from Voronezh to Moscow

3 min read
Ukrainian president's administration protests pilot Savchenko's transfer from Voronezh to Moscow

Deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration Valeriy Chaly has said that Kyiv considers unacceptable Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko's transfer from Voronezh jail to Moscow.

"Its an outrage that Nadia Savchenko has been moved today from Voronezh to a psychiatric hospital in Moscow. Such things are totally unacceptable," he said on Channel 5 on Wednesday evening.

Chaly also expressed his belief that all the instructions in Savchenko's case were coming from the Kremlin."

Earlier, the consul of the Russian Embassy in Ukraine was summoned to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and handed a note of protest in connection with the illegal actions of Russian law enforcement agencies towards Savchenko.

The Foreign Ministry reiterated that Savchenko had been held in custody in Russia on groundless charges and that on September 22 she was escorted from a pre-trial detention facility in Voronezh to Moscow, where she is to undergo a forced psychiatric examination.

"At the same time, neither the Embassy of Ukraine in the Russian Federation, nor were Savchenko's defense team provided official information about the transfer of the Ukrainian citizen to Moscow and about the place where she will be held," the ministry said.

Savchenko, 31, fought in eastern Ukraine in the ranks of the Aidar volunteer battalion and in June was taken prisoner by Russian-sponsored insurgents near the town of Schastia in Luhansk region.

She resurfaced on July 8 - reports said she was being held in a detention center in Voronezh.

The Russian Investigative Committee claims that she crossed the border into Russia without any identification papers and masquerading as a Ukrainian refugee, and that officials who stopped her in a Russian village for an identity inspection identified her as a suspect in the killing of Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin, reporters for Russian radio and television company VGTRK.

Ukraine's consul ultimately met with Savchenko after a long period during which she was denied any visits from defense lawyers and the consul. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that the pilot confirmed during the conversation with the consul that she had been transferred to Russia illegally and forcibly (handcuffed and blindfolded).

Her Russian defense lawyer Mark Feygin said Savchenko did not take direct part in the hostilities in Donbas.

On September 24, Feygin said that their client had been taken from Voronezh prison, but her whereabouts were unknown.

Then Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said that Savchenko would undergo a psychiatric examination as part of a criminal inquiry into the killings of Russian journalists.

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