NEARLY two years of imprisonment, intermittent hunger strikes and a Russian show trial did little to dull the edge of Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko. “I want to thank those who wished me well, because I survived thanks to you,” Ms Savchenko declared upon her return to Kiev on May 25th. “And I want to thank those who wished me evil, because I survived in spite of you.”
In June 2014 Ms Savchenko, a veteran of the Iraq war, was captured by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, where she had been fighting as part of a volunteer battalion. She was smuggled into Russia and arrested for allegedly directing artillery fire that killed two Russian television journalists. She quickly became a cause célèbre; in October 2014, still in a Russian jail cell, she was elected to Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada. Her trial became a diplomatic flashpoint, and her defiance in court turned her into a modern Ukrainian hero.
After a Russian judge sentenced her to 22 years, her lawyers began hinting at a possible swap. The moment came yesterday, when Mr Putin, purportedly at the request of the slain journalists’ wives, pardoned Ms Savchenko—while...Continue reading
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