Nadiya Savchenko
Nadiya Viktorivna Savchenko (Ukrainian: Надія Вікторівна Савченко; born 11 May 1981) is a Ukrainian politician, former Army aviation pilot in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and former People's Deputy of Ukraine.
Nadiya Savchenko | |
|---|---|
Надія Савченко | |
Savchenko in Warsaw, Poland, May 2017 | |
| People's Deputy of Ukraine | |
| 8th convocation | |
| In office 27 November 2014 – 24 July 2019 | |
| Constituency | Batkivshchyna, No.1 |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Nadiya Viktorivna Savchenko 11 May 1981 Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine) |
| Political party | Social and Political Platform of Nadiya Savchenko (since 2017) |
| Other political affiliations | Batkivshchyna (2014–2016) |
| Awards | Hero of Ukraine Order For Courage |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Ukraine |
| Branch/service | Ukrainian Armed Forces |
| Years of service | 1997–2014 |
| Rank | First lieutenant |
| Unit | 3rd Army Aviation Regiment, Brody, Lviv oblast (2010–2014) |
During the 2014 War in Donbas Savchenko, a first lieutenant in the Ukrainian Ground Forces, served as instructor with a volunteer infantry unit, the Aidar Battalion. In June 2014, she was captured by pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine and handed over to Russia where she was accused of having directed artillery fire that killed two Russian state-television journalists at the positions of pro-Russian forces in Ukraine.
She was subsequently charged and convicted of murder and illegally crossing the Russian state border despite being abducted from Ukrainian territory one hour before the deaths of the journalists. One of her lawyers, Mark Feygin, said she was a prisoner-of-war and called on the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations to demand her immediate release and that of the other Ukrainian POWs lest Russia be held in violation of the Geneva Conventions. European Union ministers and their representative regarded her detention as illegal and that her trial did not respect basic human rights, including the right to fair proceedings.
In November 2014, while still imprisoned, Savchenko was elected to the Verkhovna Rada in the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election, and she formally resigned from her military post. On 25 May 2016, Savchencko was exchanged in a prisoner swap for Russian GRU officers Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov captured by Ukraine.
After returning to Ukraine, Savchenko declared her intention to participate as a presidential candidate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. However, she was arrested on 22 March 2018, charged with planning a terrorist attack to overthrow the Ukrainian government. She was released from detention on 15 April 2019.
Savchenko was one of Ukraine's first women to train as a military aeroplane pilot, and is the only female aviator to pilot the Sukhoi Su-24 bomber and the Mil Mi-24 helicopter.