MOSCOW, April 3. /TASS/. Foreign advocates of the former Ukrainian servicewoman Nadezhda SAvchenko have not even once mentioned it is necessary to find the truth about murder of the Russian reporters Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin, which proves all the attention they focus on Savchenko is nothing but a propaganda campaign, spokeswoman of the Russian foreign ministry Maria Zakharova said in an interview with the Pozdnyakov show on Russia’s NTV channel on Sunday.
"The fact the journalists were killed is not argued - they are killed," she said. "We have not heard from any of the western counterparts, publicly or not publicly, any calls to investigate into their murder. If, as they say, she (Savchenko - TASS) is not guilty, then somewhere still at large are murderers of the journalists."
She said the lack of attention from Savchenko’s advocates in the U.S. or in Europe to finding those responsible for deaths of the Russian journalists proves "everything they are doing in connection with Savchenko is the information campaign to promote that name, in order to shift focus and to draw attention from implementation of the Minsk accords."
"So that nobody in Ukraine asked - for what have we been waiting for two years, where are the reforms, where is fighting the corruption," she continued. "This is something to be extinguished, closed. For this purpose here is the campaign, which is called ‘Nadezhda Savchenko’."
"The name Nadezhda Savchenko is known to all, but we all should know the two other names - Kornelyuk and Voloshin," she said.
On March 22, the Donetsk city court in Russia’s southern Rostov region sentenced Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian ex-pilot, to 22 years in a general regime penal colony and a fine worth 30,000 rubles (442 U.S. dollars).
Savchenko was found guilty of the murder of journalists from Russia’s VGTRK television channel, Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin; of an attempt to kill civilians, and of illegal crossing of the Russian state border.
Savchenko’s term starts from the date of detention, or June 30, 2014. Thus, her prison sentence will last for 20 years and 3 months. The sentence came into force 10 days after the verdict was presented as the ex-pilot did not submit an appeal.