Savchenko 'Could Die Within Days'

Yelena Masyuk,  journalist and a member of the Presidential Council of the Russian Federation for Civil Society and Human Rights, has visited Nadezhda Savchenko in jail and reports that her health is seriously deteriorating.

Masyuk addressed the head of the Council, Mikhail Fedotov, urging him to appeal to the authorities for Savchenko to be removed from jail and placed under house arrest, suggesting either the Ukrainian embassy or a flat rented by her lawyers in Moscow.

Masyuk wrote (translated by The Interpreter):

After today's meeting with Nadezhda, I must say that her health has sharply deteriorated over recent days. Today is the 76th day of her hunger strike. For 15 days, she has refused glucose injections. She has begun to suffer serious problems with her internal organs.

Nadezhda Savchenko could die within days.

Masyuk commented that it appeared that the Russian Investigative Committee (Sledkom) appeared to be trying to pin the guilt for all the crimes the Committee is accusing Ukrainian forces of conducting in Donbass conflict on Savchenko alone, as they cannot arrest the other suspects named such as the Ukrainian interior minister, Arsen Avakov, or the oligarch and governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ihor Kolomoyskyi.

No evidence, Masyuk says, has been presented by Sledkom to connect Savchenko to the deaths of two Russian journalists, whom she is charged with murder, for the near-nine months the Ukrainian officer has been held in pre-trial detention.

Masyuk also warned that Savchenko's death in custody would likely lead to more sanctions against Russia and the creation of a "Savchenko list" to follow the Magnitsky list of Russian officials connected with the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in pre-trial detention, who are barred from entry to the USA or using American banks.

Nadezhda Savchenko is a Ukrainian military officer (and now an MP) who was captured by separatist fighters in the Lugansk region, documented undergoing interrogation (in a video which was uploaded to YouTube) and then taken to Russia where she was accused of illegally crossing the border and participating in the murder of two Russian journalists who were killed while standing at a separatist checkpoint which came under Ukrainian mortar fire. 

She has been on hunger strike, protesting that her trial is illegal and must be suspended in light of her status as a prisoner of war (which the Russian government does not recognise her as) since December 13.

Photo from: censor.net.ua.