Nadezhda Savchenko is suspected of colluding
to change the constitutional system by force and plotting an attempt on the
life of the Ukrainian president.
MOSCOW,
March 24. /TASS/. The statement that the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (parliament)
deputy Nadezhda Savchenko was recruited by intelligence services while
imprisoned in Russia, is "sheer nonsense," the Kremlin spokesman
Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the Mir 24 TV channel broadcast on
Saturday.
"This
is probably a suggestion offered by the British, they like such theories. Of
course, it is sheer nonsense. Savchenko is an internal affair of Ukraine,"
he said.
Peskov also
wondered whether "European leaders will make any announcement requesting
Kiev to free Savchenko."
On March
15, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko submitted a motion to the
country’s parliament about the fact that Savchenko is suspected of committing a
number of criminal offenses, including planning a terrorist attack in the
parliament’s session hall. On March 22, Ukrainian MPs stripped Savchenko of
immunity and voted for prosecuting and putting her in police custody. Shortly
after, she was taken into a pre-trial detention center.
Savchenko
is suspected of "colluding to change the constitutional system by force,
plotting an attempt on the life of the Ukrainian president, conspiring to carry
out a terror attack, assisting the activities of the terrorist organization,
the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), carrying, acquiring and transferring
firearms."
The former
pilot Savchenko had taken an active part in Kiev’s military operation in
eastern Ukraine and was detained in Russia in June 2014. She had been sentenced
in Russia to 22 years in jail over complicity in the killing of two Russian
journalists in eastern Ukraine. She spent nearly two years in Russian custody
and was pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 25, 2016. Savchenko
then returned to Kiev and began her active political career as a Ukrainian MP.
She fell into disfavor of Ukraine’s authorities after her private trips to the
self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in eastern Ukraine and
talks with their leadership.
Source: ITAR-TASS 24-03-2018
