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Poroshenko hopes Nadezhda Savchenko will be back in Ukraine within weeks

"I have a firm hope that the presidential airplane with my proxies will take back Nadezhda to Ukraine within several weeks," he said

Petro Poroshenko EPA/ROBERT GHEMENT

Petro Poroshenko

© EPA/ROBERT GHEMENT

KIEV, April 24. /TASS/. Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko said on Sunday he hopes Ukrainian former pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, who was sentenced to a prison term of 22 years in Russia, will be back home in Ukraine within weeks.

"I have a firm hope that the presidential airplane with my proxies will take back Nadezhda to Ukraine within several weeks," he said in his traditional weekly televised interview.

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Resolution on ‘Savchenko list’ Ukraine’s ill-service to PACE - opinion

He called on politicians to refrain from comments on the situation around Savchenko and not to meddle with it as such actions had previously hindered the process of her return to Ukraine.

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.

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