News

Nadezhda Savchenko is charged with complicity in murder, in other words this is one of thousands of similar investigations run by the Russia’s Investigative Committee. The only difference is that Savchenko is not a citizen of Russia.

We cannot say that Savchenko’s confinement conditions are the same as those for other defendants charged with the same crime. She has no doubt far more comfortable conditions. Namely, following her request she is being kept in a solitary confinement, almost all her relatives, human rights activists, not to mention doctors and lawyers are allowed to see her. For instance, I can say that the investigator has made a concession for Savchenko’s relatives and exceeded the limit of visits set by current rules. There have been three of them in the month of February alone. 

But if the wish to see her relatives often is quite natural and understandable, which the investigators are trying to meet, then the visits of lawyers and human rights activists (which, by the way, are not limited) give some food for thought and not so much their number (there have been about 20 of them in February) as their nature and aim. According to our information the human rights activists are the ones who provoke and urge Savchenko to a hunger strike, assuring her that she looked too good for a starving person. Well that’s a proper care about the health and future of the accused! Indeed, anything goes to reach the target. To all appearance Savechenko’s health and life are just the means for them that are justified by the ends: to influence public opinion, demonstrate bloodthirstiness of Russian justice, put a maximum pressure on the investigation. The chances to do the trick by such cynical means are zero. First, because the judicial and penitentiary system has developed and has been using for a long time absolutely legal and humane ways of supporting health in such cases. And secondly, can you imagine that thousands of defendants charged with the same crime will go on a hunger strike and for humane reasons they will be released and sent to sanatoriums for their health? So a number of rhetorical questions come to mind: Why is Savchenko better or worse than other prisoners? Would those well-wishers seeking Savchenko’s release with such persistence like to look in the eyes of children of Donbass crippled by Ukrainian bullets and shells? Do they want to ask relatives and colleagues of killed Russian journalists Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin their opinion on this matter?

Do quiet down at last! Let the investigators to finish their job. Let the court of justice to determine Savchenko’s degree of guilt of and punishment for the crimes she is charged with.

Head of Media Relations                                                                                                                             V.I. Markin