Look Who it Was Random video

Ukraine’s Savchenko swapped for 2 non-soldiers of not-Russian non-army.

228 views · Published 26 May 2016 · 1:53 · Indexed 8 November 2026

Channel: NewsFromUkraine · 2016 · News & Politics

Watch on YouTube

In June 2014, Ukraine’s helicopter pilot Nadiya Savchenko was captured by Russia-backed terrorists in eastern Ukraine and handed over to Russia, where she was cynically accused of illegal crossing of Russian state border and of having directed artillery fire that killed two Russian state-television journalists.

She was subsequently convicted of murder despite being abducted from Ukrainian territory one hour before the deaths of the journalists.

During 2 years of Russian captivity Nadiya Savchenko remained unbroken, she has declared a number of hunger strikes refusing both food and fluids protesting against the 'farce' of Russian trial. In Ukraine she became a symbol of resistance to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. 

Savchenko has never asked Putin for mercy and forbid her lawyers to ask for mercy on her behalf. However, her release was one of the conditions of the Minsk ceasefire agreements, which Russia kept ignoring until recently when it started to run out of money. But how to release a “killing machine in a skirt” (as Russian mass media portrayed Savchenko) who doesn’t ask for mercy? Putin found a “solution” – he asked relatives of the killed journalists to petition him to show mercy to Savchenko. What a well-doer!

On 25 May 2016, Savchencko was exchanged for Russian GRU officers Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov who were captured by Ukraine in 2015 and were immediately abandoned by Russia. Since Russia disgracefully abandoned its soldiers, they were prosecuted as terrorists and sentenced to 14 years in Ukraine for terrorism and murder of Ukrainian soldier. In other words, a kidnapped woman-hero was exchanged for two coward murderers.

More from this channel