The US State Department urged Russia to immediately free the starving pilot Savchenko and other "hostages"

The US State Department urged Russia to immediately release the Ukrainian pilot and deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Nadezhda Savchenko, who has been holding a hunger strike in the Moscow pre -trial detention center No. 6 (Pechatniki) for a fourth week. This is stated in a statement by the representative of the State Department of Jen Psaki, made at a briefing on January 6 and published on the official website of the American Foreign Ministry.

"We confirm our condemnation that Russia continues to hold Ukrainian hostages within the country, including a member of the Ukrainian parliament Nadia Savchenko and film producer Oleg Sentsov ," she said.

According to Psaki, Washington approves of the exchange of prisoners , which occurred in December last year between the Ukrainian army and representatives of the self -proclaimed republics in the east of the country. However, Psaki emphasized that at present hundreds of people continue to be captured. “We know that Savchenko holds a hunger strike to protest the conditions of imprisonment, and also suffers from other health problems,” said Psaki. “We urge to immediately free it, as well as the rest of the Ukrainian hostages that Russia holds.”

Psaki's comments were heard after the US Ambassador to Ukraine Jeffrey Payette actively entered the campaign for the release of Savchenko on Twitter . “The Nadi Savchenko family wants to be with her for Christmas,” he wrote on January 5 in English, Ukrainian and Russian.

32-year-old Nadezhda Savchenko fought in the east of Ukraine as part of the Ukrainian volunteer battalion "Aidar". In June 2014, she was captured by representatives of the self -proclaimed republics. On July 8, it became known that Savchenko was located in the Voronezh pre -trial detention center, later it was transported to Moscow. It remains to the end not clear the question of how the pilot was in the hands of Russian law enforcement officers. Earlier, investigators claimed: Savchenko entered Russia under the guise of refugees, after which she was detained. However, the pilot herself assured that she was introduced by force.

In the Russian Federation, Savchenko is accused of aiding of the murder of Russian journalists who died in the east of Ukraine in the summer of 2014 during shelling. According to investigators, the pilot performed the functions of a fire adjustor. She herself categorically rejects all the accusations.

For a long time, the woman was in a psychiatric examination in Moscow in the Center of Serbian, but in October she was returned back to jail. Then the courtextended Savchenko the term of detention until February 2015.

On December 15, 2014, Savchenko announced a hunger strike. A week later, the Moscow City Court rejected the appeal of lawyers to extend her arrest until February, and then the pilot announced that she would continue the hunger strike until she returned to her homeland. On January 5, former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko called on Savchenko to stop the hunger strike, saying that after 21 days she causes irreparable harm to the body.