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Poroshenko orders to investigate how pilot Savchenko got to Russia

Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin says that the committee had brought charges against Ukrainian citizen Nadezhda Savchenko of involvement in the killing of Russian reporters
Petro Poroshenko during his visit to Sloviansk ITAR-TASS/Nikolai Lazarenko
Petro Poroshenko during his visit to Sloviansk
© ITAR-TASS/Nikolai Lazarenko

KIEV, July 09. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prosecutor-General's Office to investigate how woman pilot Nadezhda Savchenko's got into the Russian Federation's territory, a spokesman for the information center of the Ukrainian Council of National Security and Defense Andriy Lysenko said.

According to Lysenko, the president has ordered the Foreign Ministry to contact Russian colleagues on the matter and the Prosecutor-General's Office and the Justice Ministry to take all possible steps for her soonest release. Poroshenko believes Savchenko was abducted.

The Russian Investigative Committee's spokesman Vladimir Markin told ITAR-TASS on Thursday that the committee had brought charges against Ukrainian citizen Nadezhda Savchenko of involvement in the killing of Russian reporters Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin. She was detained in Russia and taken into custody.

Markin said it was established that Savchenko served in Ukraine’s armed forces and was a gunner of a Mi-24 helicopter. According to the investigators' information, Savchenko joined the Aidar battalion during military actions near Luhansk. After she got to know the whereabouts of a group of reporters of the Russian state television and radio broadcasting company (VGTRK) and other civilians near Luhansk, she shared this information with fighters. After that, mortar fire was opened precisely on the site, killing VGTRK reporters Kornelyuk and Voloshin, Markin said.

Savchenko crossed the border to Russia without documents as a refugee. She was detained in a residential site to verify her identity, and it was established that she was a suspect in the criminal case opened over the killing of the Russian reporters, Markin noted, adding her detention was strictly within the law.

Savchenko's attorney will appeal against holding her in custody in a Voronezh district court, a court spokesperson, Tatyana Fateyeva,  told ITAR-TASS. The district court has issued a warrant to arrest the suspect.

The court ruled on July 2 to hold Savchenko in custody until August 30. The ruling has not come into force in connection with the appeal, Fateyeva said.