The very day the Ukrainian pilot was sentenced to 22 years, it was clear to many that her release would have took place shortly. A high-profile prisoner, Nadiya Savchenko had become more an unbearable weight for Russia seeking not to lose face.
It was right a month ago when I wrote about her possible release here right after Aleksandr Aleksandrov and Evgeny Erofeev, the two Russian soldiers captured in Donbass and exchanged the day before yesterday with Nadiya Savchenko, were sentenced. Nadiya’s release was an issue on the table between Russia and Ukraine since the day of her sentence, nor could it be otherwise. Nadiya has always been considered by Moscow as a high-profile prisoner to be sold at a high price, but things have changed over the last two years. The fame she gained all over the world, her election to the Rada, her image as an heroine for all Ukrainians turned her from a precious bargaining chip into an embarrassing prisoner. It’s clear when you see the little price Ukraine paid in exchange: two low-profile soldiers for a national hero.
The non-swap
Unlike another recent celebrated case, like that of Eston Kohver, Nadiya had become so great in the hands of the Russian selective justice that she cannot even be swapped. At least, not officially. “The transfer of Nadiya Savchenko to Ukraine and Russians Alexandrov and Yerofeyev to Russia happened on the basis of the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, ratified by Russia and Ukraine,” Russian Upper House Speaker Valentina Matvienko said. “This is not a prisoner swap“, she added.
Nor could it be otherwise, because Moscow has always treated Savchenko like a criminal and not a prisoner of war. And because exchanging her with Aleksandrov and Erofeev would have meant implicitly admitting that Russia is at war with Ukraine. A blasphemy.
Denying the evidence is becoming more and more a specialty of the Russian rulers and media. The Convention Matvienko mentioned requires a sentence, no appeal and is aimed to let the convicted serve his sentence in his country. It’s not a release but only a benefit for the sentenced person and his relatives. To get around it, the two Russian and Ukrainian presidents had to pardon simultaneously in their respective prisoners, allowing them to go home at the same time as free persons with two flights that have almost crossed in the sky. Sounds definitely like a prisoners swap? Oh well!
Ready to die
The tribute Nadiya received on her return home contrasts with the silence that has surrounded the arrival of two Russian soldiers in Moscow. Only a tv crew waiting for them at the airport, no press conference, no mention of the role of military service when they were arrested in Ukraine, no welcoming as heroes. Sputnik news has spoken generally of “two Russian citizens”, while the RT did not mention them at all. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, reiterated the Kremlin’s line, saying that the two were in Donbass as a simple Russian citizens and not as soldiers. This, however, contrasts with what the two men said when captured by the Ukrainian army. They admitted being in actual service for the GRU, the Russian military intelligence, engaged in military operations in Ukraine, just before taking back during the trial.
Nadiya Savchenko, unlike Aleksandrov and Erofeev, never stopped screaming her innocence, the absurdity of the accusations, the fact that she was taken illegally in Russia, and her total dedication to Ukraine. The same woman that, just landed in Kiev as a free person, shouted “I am ready to die for Ukraine, in any moment”.
For the two Russian military that Moscow wants to hide and forget, now in Ukraine there is a person who gained a popular support any politician would envy, who is already a member of the Rada (elected during her imprisonment), a person who in the imagination of the Ukrainians it is really a knight in shining armor, unlike even the best among its rulers. “Our parliament will consist of people who deserve to be there,” she told reporters while still at the airport runway. “I’ll be frank. I do not know how to get it nor do I think it will happen tomorrow, but I’m ready to die for it“. A political program that could shake the Rada and the Bankova.
@daniloeliatweet
The very day the Ukrainian pilot was sentenced to 22 years, it was clear to many that her release would have took place shortly. A high-profile prisoner, Nadiya Savchenko had become more an unbearable weight for Russia seeking not to lose face.
