“Ukraine has the right to be, and it will be!” she said, pledging to do everything she could to free all Ukrainian nationals still being kept prisoner in Russia and in parts of Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian rebels. “I want to tell you that I can’t bring the dead back, but I am already ready to lay my life for Ukraine on the battlefield again”.
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Russia and Ukraine completed a high-level prisoner swap Wednesday, trading a Ukrainian helicopter pilot dubbed the country’s “Joan of Arc” for two Russian servicemen accused of being members of Russian military intelligence. The heroes of Ukraine should not die.
She is widely seen in Ukraine as a symbol of resistance against Russian Federation, a perception bolstered by her defiant behaviour in court during her trial. Meanwhile, two Russian special forces officers were simultaneously flown hurriedly to Moscow hours after they were pardoned by Ukraine’s president.
The two Russians, Captain Yerofeyev and Sergeant Alexandrov, were wounded and captured by the Ukrainian army in fighting near the government-held city of Schastya in May 2015. Western leaders on Wednesday welcomed the pardon of former Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko as a move that may give positive impulses to the process of implementation of the Minsk Agreements.
“Finally!” Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said on Twitter.
“I only wish to thank you for this position and express hope that this decision taken on humanitarian considerations will help reduce tensions in the conflict zone”, Putin said.
According to Reuters, Yerofeyev and Alexandrov both told the news agency in interviews previous year that they were Russian special forces soldiers who were captured while carrying out a secret operation in eastern Ukraine.But Moscow, which denies it had troops in eastern Ukraine, has never publicly acknowledged that the two men were acting on its orders.
“I know nothing about the exchange, neither do my colleagues”, Polozov said. “She is on their way home to Ukraine”.
Ms Savchenko, a military pilot, volunteered to fight with a ground unit against pro-Moscow separatists who rose up against Kiev’s rule in eastern Ukraine.
She was handed a 22-year jail sentence in March over the killing of two Moscow state television journalists in the conflict in east Ukraine. Lt. Savchenko, who denies the charges, became a symbol of Ukrainian defiance during her trial, staging hunger strikes and sparring with the judge. He said the same procedure was underway in Russian Federation and indicated that the swap was in the works. In April, Poroshenko, a multimillionaire businessman, appeared in the Panama Papers in connection with an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
Opposition activists in Russian Federation welcomed the prisoner exchange.
“We wouldn’t have embarrassed ourselves before the whole world with the “trial” of a deputy of the Rada and Pace”.
During her time in Russian prison, she was elected to Ukraine’s parliament and also “appointed to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe”, the wire service adds.
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Savchenko’s release was welcomed by European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini.
