Brussels, 23/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 23 March, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini spoke out against the previous day's Russian sentence of 22 years in gaol for Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko. The Russian law court found Savchenko guilty of complicity in the murder of two Russian journalists, “despite many calls” for her release.
“We continue to add our voices to the many others worldwide calling on the Russian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Nadiya Savchenko, on humanitarian grounds, and in keeping with the 'Package of measures for the implementation of the Minsk agreements' and the commitment therein to release all hostages and detained persons related to the conflict in eastern Ukraine”, Mogherini stated in a press release.
She said that the call for release also concerned all the other Ukrainian citizens illegally detained in Russia, “including [film director] Oleg Sentsov and [activist] Oleksandr Kolchenko, that need to be guaranteed a safe return to Ukraine”.
European Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn and many other European foreign ministers have also called for Savchenko's release.
Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko has proposed to Russia exchanging Savchenko for two agents suspected to be from Russian military intelligence, who are detained in Ukraine. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)