Translated by Ollie Richardson

12:17:48
15/03/2018

ukrinform.ru

The non-factional People’s Deputy Nadezhda Savchenko said that she was in Strasbourg for three days and spoke with the European politicians about liberating Ukrainian prisoners.

She stated this during a briefing on Thursday outside the building of the SBU in Kiev, the correspondent of Ukrinform reports.

“I was in Europe for these three days. Namely in Strasbourg, not in the Council of Europe, not in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, namely in the European Parliament. I communicated with European politicians about the liberation of our prisoners and political prisoners in the Russian Federation,” said Savchenko.

She reported that she had many meetings, but noted that there could’ve been more if internal problems in Ukraine didn’t impeded her.

“I have real hope that 5 months after presidential elections in the Russian Federation and prior to sports events in Russia or in other places, this issue will be resolved. I very much believe in it.

Now I want to ask the President of the Russian Federation. I do not know if I have enough time to address you personally, so I will appeal in this way. Vladimir Putin, you know very well that I sent a request to you for a personal pardon, and now as a person, as a Ukrainian, as a person who has come this way, I want to ask you to release all the Ukrainians you hold in prisons in the occupied territories and in Russia. There are 20 Russians in prisons in Ukraine, take them away. Show them that you are not indifferent to them.

With this appeal, I want to show not only Ukrainian, but also Russian politicians that political pride is nothing when it comes to the lives of people,” Savchenko said.

As Ukrinform reported, Savchenko was called for questioning in the SBU on March 13th concerning the case of Ruban, who was detained in the Donetsk region in an attempt to take out an arsenal of weapons from the “occupied” territory, however the people’s deputy didn’t come to the investigators.

Then Savchenko reported that she learned about the summons from the media, which “isn’t a reliable source of information”, and added that from March 12th to March 16th she is “on a planned working trip to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where parliamentary sessions of the EU are taking place”.

The people’s deputy also said that she officially reported about this trip to the first department of the office of the Verkhovna Rada, therefore, according to her, the specified information was available to the SBU.

She also expressed the hope that the agenda about her summons to the SBU is personally handed over to her.

However, the press secretary of the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada said that the speaker Andriy Parubiy didn’t sign an order for the foreign business trip of the People’s Deputy Savchenko.

The Prosecutor-General Yury Lutsenko said on March 14th that he will be forced to submit a report on Savchenko to the Verkhovna Rada if she doesn’t come for interrogation on March 15th.

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