Donetsk City Court heard secret prosecution witnesses in the case of Nadezhda Savchenko

Today, at the trial in the case of Nadezhda Savchenko, two secret witnesses for the prosecution spoke, who testified under fictitious names. The defendant's defense drew attention to significant discrepancies in what witnesses told during the investigation and in court.

Ukrainian soldier Nadezhda Savchenko
Photo: Vasily Deryugin, Kommersant / buy photo

Classified witness Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov, with whose speech the next court hearing in the case of Nadezhda Savchenko began today, in the summer of 2014 served as deputy head of the special department of the Zarya battalion. On June 17, he took part in the battle, during which Ms. Savchenko was captured. According to the witness, he organized the delivery of ammunition and the evacuation of refugees, and when he once again went to Lugansk to get ammunition, he drove out of the forest plantation in his car and saw a camera operator on the road: “I shouted to him to leave, that it was dangerous here.” " At that moment, however, the shelling began, at first Ivan Ivanov thought that the entire VGTRK film crew had died, but later he learned that one of the journalists still survived.

“I consider first of all those who kidnapped me as criminals”

The witness did not know the defendant herself, but already at the Zarya battalion he interrogated several captured Aidar fighters, who told him that Nadezhda Savchenko came to Aidar as a volunteer and was there as deputy commander of the battalion Sergei Melnichuk. At the same time, according to the witness, the prisoner told him that the defendant, while training young fighters, “stood on corpses and taught that there is no need to be afraid of them.”

“Then there were rumors that she was either released, or she ran away,” said Ivan Ivanov. “Igor Plotnitsky (the head of the self-proclaimed LPR, and at that time the commander of Zarya. - Kommersant ) told me that he accepted her decision let go because she is a woman.

“Do the laws work differently in your city and outside of it?”

The witness gave evidence to investigators three times, and lawyer Ilya Novikov filed a motion to have them read out, since during interviews Mr. Ivanov said that on that day the militias themselves had been firing mortars at Ukrainian artillery positions since early morning. “One of the possible lines of defense: the journalists came under friendly fire,” the defense lawyer explained. Also, earlier the witness said that the Ukrainian military also fired at the positions of the militias from mortars, and only in 2015, when the investigation decided that the fire came from a howitzer, he clarified his testimony.

“The witness testified three times, let’s listen to them, if he is so talkative,” Nadezhda Savchenko supported her defenders, and the court, after consulting, granted the petition.

Who has already spoken at the trial in the case of Nadezhda Savchenko

As follows from the case materials, which defense lawyer Novikov began to read, during his first meeting with the investigator in July 2014, the witness actually said that the militia fired mortars at Ukrainian artillery positions. At the second conversation, in December 2014, he also said that the Aidar battalion conducted “targeted mortar fire” on the positions of LPR fighters. And in 2015, during the third interrogation, he clarified his previous testimony: now, according to the witness, the Ukrainian side also used heavy artillery, and the militias responded only with light small arms, and they only had mortars after Ms. Savchenko was hit captivity.

“In your previous testimony, you said that your positions were fired from mortars,” the defense attorney addressed the witness, having finished reading.

- Yes, that’s what I said, but for me these are identical concepts, I’m not an artilleryman.

— Do you know the difference between mortar fire and artillery fire?

— The tails of the mines remain, but I learned about this after interrogations, when I began to be interested in this issue. The mine whistles, the shell rustles.

— At the same time, you claim that you did not use mortars during the battle.

“I affirm that there were no mortars.” Only in the afternoon they began to prepare trenches there and brought three mortars.

“This witness is the only one who lies from beginning to end.”

— And before that, did you fire back at the artillery with machine guns?

“We fired at tanks and infantry, but there was no artillery visible.

Nadezhda Savchenko was interested in that part of the witness’s story where he spoke about the interrogation of a captured Aidar fighter: “In the video recording of his interrogation, he doesn’t say anything about me jumping on corpses!”

“I’m speaking from his words that you were jumping,” the witness disagreed.

The next secret witness, Mikhail Mikhailovich Mikhailov, took part in a shootout with Aidar fighters early in the morning on June 17, but by the time Ms. Savchenko was captured he had long since left for other positions. He appeared in the case only because at the beginning of July 2014, the special department instructed him to go to Voronezh and hand over Nadezhda Savchenko’s documents to the investigators.

- Who in the special department gave you such an order? — the defendant asked.

“If I tell you who sent me, this person will be able to decipher my identity,” the secret witness was confused.

- This is very funny. Is he afraid of his own commander? Can they rat each other out? — Nadezhda Savchenko was surprised.

From the testimony of the witness given to the investigator and also read out in court, it followed that on that day the militias, in addition to skirmishes with the Ukrainian military, also carried out mortar fire on enemy artillery positions: “It’s just that the mortars were 2-3 km away, but we only machine guns,” the witness explained the discrepancy in testimony.

The next meeting will take place on November 3.

Ilya Barabanov, Donetsk (Rostov region)

“The mine whistles, the shell rustles”