Ukrainian pilot Savchenko to be transferred to prison hospital if her health declines - Federal Penitentiary Service director
MOSCOW. Jan 15 (Interfax) - Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, who is charged with complicity in the murder of Russian journalists, is under the permanent observation of prison doctors and has no complaints about the living conditions in prison, Gennady Korniyenko, director of the Federal Penitentiary Service, said.
"Savchenko is on hunger strike. We are closely monitoring her health. If problems arise, she will be transferred to hospital," Korniyenko told reporters in Moscow on Thursday.
Korniyenko said Savchenko only drinks water and is being given intravenous injections of glucose at her consent.
Savchenko went on hunger strike in mid December 2014 and has no intention of stopping it.
According to information possessed by Russian investigators, Savchenko, a 33-year-old pilot, was fighting with the Aidar volunteer battalion in eastern Ukraine when she was captured by militias in June near the town of Shchastya, a suburb of Luhansk. It was said that on July 8 she was being held at the Voronezh pre-trial detention facility in Russia.
The Russian Investigative Committee claimed earlier that Savchenko had crossed the border without documents under the guise of a refugee and was detained later for identification, after which it turned out that she was suspected of playing some role in the killing of Russian TV journalists Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin near Luhansk. On July 9, she was charged with complicity in murder. Savchenko denies the charges. The Ukrainian authorities demand her release
In October 2014, Savchenko was elected to Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada for the Batkivschyna Party. On December 25, the Verkhovna Rada adopted an address to international organizations and inter-parliamentary assemblies on her release, stating that the pilot had been included in the Verkhovna Rada delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.