KIEV, March 8. /TASS/. A group of doctors from Kiev received a permission from Russian authorities to visit Ukraine’s national Nadezhda Savchenko, suspected of aiding in the murder of Russian reporters, Ukraine’s representative on humanitarian issues in the Contact Group on settlement of the Ukrainian crisis Irina Geraschenko said on Tuesday.
"Ukrainian diplomats managed to have the Russian authorities promise our doctors will see Nadezhda on March 9," she wrote on her Facebook page. "Ukraine’s president has ordered to form up urgently a group of best doctors, relying on requests and position in that major issue of Nadezhda’s family - her mother and sister. Today, a mobile group of three doctors is leaving from Kiev for the Rostov region."
Earlier reports said that Savchenko, a former Ukrainian air force helicopter navigator, went on a ‘dry’ hunger strike (refusing to drink water and to eat) after the Donetsk city court (in southern Russia) had postponed the trial until March 9 and she was unable to make her last plea.
Savchenko, 34, who has been held in Russian custody since July 2014, already went on hunger strike for 83 days last March.
Russia’s prosecutor has called for a 23-year prison term and a fine of 100,000 rubles ($1,400) for Savchenko. She was charged with murder, attempted murder and illegal border crossing.
Russia’s investigators say Savchenko, the gunner of a Mi-24 helicopter, joined the Aidar militant battalion and in June 2014 conducted covert surveillance and direction of artillery bombarding targeting a checkpoint in the much-troubled Lugansk region. The settlement was full of civilians, including three Russian journalists.
Two Russian journalists - Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin - from the All-Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network (VGTRK) died in the shelling.