Politics
fortitudePilot Savchenko on hunger strike for 41 days, won’t stop
Batkivschyna faction MP pilot Nadia Savchenko has been on hunger strike for 41 days, and was infused with another IV on Thursday, Savchenko's lawyer Nikolai Polozov has said.
"[I] have met with Nadia in prison. She's been on a hunger strike for 41 days and [she] is not going to stop it. Today, she's been infused with an IV once again," he wrote on Twitter.
According to the lawyer, the prison doctor told Savchenko that no one in the prison had managed to maintain a hunger strike for more than 40 days. "Usually, after two weeks [prisoners on hunger strike] are sent to a hospital [to make them eat normally]," he added.
In addition, Polozov said that Savchenko was following the news about eastern Ukraine on TV. "[Her] heart bleeds that she can't do anything to help while sitting in a prison," Polozov said.
It was reported earlier that Savchenko, a 33-year-old pilot, was fighting with the Aidar volunteer battalion in eastern Ukraine when she was captured by militants in June near the town of Schastia, a suburb of Luhansk. It was stated on July 8 that she was being held at the Voronezh pre-trial detention facility in Russia.
On July 9, Russia indicted her for complicity in murder. Savchenko has rejected all charges. Ukraine is demanding her release.
According to several sources, Savchenko went on a hunger strike on December 13 or 15, in response to the prison's failure to provide her with medical care. She has lost some hearing since being imprisoned.
Savchenko was number one on the Batkivschyna party election list during parliamentary elections held on October 26, 2014. On November 19, the Central Election Commission registered her as an MP.
On December 25, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a parliamentary address to international organizations and inter-parliamentary assemblies regarding the release of Savchenko, which also noted that she was included in the Verkhovna Rada's delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Granting diplomatic status to Savchenko will mean that Russia can no longer detain her legally.
Source: Interfax-Ukraine
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