MOSCOW, March 6. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s request on releasing Ukrainian ex-pilot Nadezhda Savchenko has been sent to Kiev, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS on Friday.

"The response signed by the president was prepared and sent," Peskov said.

The contents of the letter are not disclosed, he added.

On Thursday, Peskov confirmed that the Kremlin had received Poroshenko’s letter. The topic was not discussed at talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Peskov noted.

Earlier on Thursday, Poroshenko said he had sent a letter to Putin with a request to release Savchenko, who is awaiting trial in detention in Russia. Poroshenko also asked Renzi to raise the issue at his talks with Putin in Moscow.

According to her lawyer, Savchenko on Thursday stopped the hunger strike she had been on for over 80 days.

Savchenko's case

Russian investigators say that Savchenko, the gunner of a Mi-24 helicopter, joined the notorious Aidar battalion during combat operations in Ukraine's war-torn Luhansk region of Ukraine last June.

Upon finding out the position of a filming crew of the Russian State Broadcasting Company and other civilians, she allegedly reported the data to mortar men who then delivered fire at the crew and the civilians. As a result, correspondent Igor Kornelyuk and sound engineer Anton Voloshin were killed.

As she was elected a deputy of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of the eighth convocation, she filed resignation from the Ukrainian Armed Forces.