MOSCOW, March 26. /TASS/. The Kremlin deeply regrets that hysteria is on the rise around the case of former Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko sentenced to a long term in prison in Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Right to Know program on the TVTs channel, which broadcast a part of the interview on Saturday.
Kiev is in a state of "exaltation close to hysteria" and the Western public opinion is being widely imposed, he has said.
"I would specify it as excesses of the general anti-Russian hysteria that is taking place," Peskov said. "What is more, this manifestation does not facilitate the solution of this problem by any means but makes it more complicated."
The Kremlin regrets that such hysteria exists, according to Peskov.
"This makes the solution of the problem a much more difficult process as the cases like this one are better solved in silence," he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had not made any decisions with regard to Savchenko’s case, his spokesman said.
"As for Savchenko, the situation is quite simple and clear for us," he said. "Savchenko has been sentenced and then everything is done in compliance with laws of the Russian Federation. She will serve a sentence. Different decisions could be made only by the head of state. There have been no such decisions yet."
"Savchenko’s theme" did not top the agenda but was highlighted during the visits to Moscow by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Peskov said adding that Kerry had come "not to wield pressure on Putin over Savchenko."
The Kremlin spokesman said that Savchenko’s theme was hardly possible to be the focus of such talks although both Steinmeier and Kerry mentioned it.
On Tuesday, the Donetsk City Court in southern Russia’s Rostov Region found former Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko guilty of complicity in the murder of Russian journalists Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin and of illegal border crossing and sentenced her to 22 years in jail and a fine of 30,000 rubles ($440). Savchenko earlier said she would neither recognize nor appeal the sentence.
Later on the same day, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he was ready to exchange Russians Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Aleksandr Aleksandrov, who had been detained in Ukraine, for Savchenko.
On Friday, Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov said that the swap of Ukrainian ex-pilot Nadezhda Savchenko for Russian nationals on trial in Ukraine is theoretically possible but only upon decision by Russia’s president.