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Ukraine’s Savchenko unveils new public movement

The tool of changing Ukraine’s political system is the true Ukrainian elite which is not linked to oligarchs, the supporters of the movement claim

Nadezhda Savchenko Michele Tantussi/Getty Images

Nadezhda Savchenko

© Michele Tantussi/Getty Images

KIEV, December 27. /TASS/. Former Ukrainian servicewoman and MP of the Verkhovna Rada Nadezhda Savchenko introduced a new civic platform Runa at a news conference in western Ukraine’s Lvov on Tuesday.

"Runa won’t be a political project," Savchenko said.

The lawmaker stressed that the changes in the system should be not in persons but that "people should guide the authorities in order to fulfill the Ukrainians’ right to live as their authentic selves feel."

Read also

Ukrainian MP says Savchenko expelled from Rada committee for improper political behavior

The tool of changing Ukraine’s political system is "the true Ukrainian elite not linked to oligarchs," the supporters of the movement say.

In late October, Savchenko announced her intention to leave Yulia Tymoshenko’s All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" or Batkivshchyna party. Savchenko was elected to the parliament as its member in 2014. The Batkivshchyna faction excluded Savchenko from its members in mid-December. On December 22, Savchenko was also expelled from Ukraine’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and later from the Parliamentary Committee for National Defense and Security.

Savchenko fell into disfavor of Ukraine’s authorities after her private trip to Minsk and her talks with the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky, earlier this month to discuss the prisoner swap.

The former pilot Savchenko had been sentenced in Russia to 22 years in jail over complicity in the killing of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine. She spent nearly two years in Russian custody and was pardoned by the Russian president on May 25, 2016.

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Ukraine crisis Nadezhda Savchenko

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