Nadezhda Savchenko, who returned to Ukraine last week after being pardoned by President Vladimir Putin, spoke for the first time in the Verkhovna Rada, where she was elected as a deputy while she was in custody in Russia.

Deputy Nadezhda Savchenko near the Verkhovna Rada building (Photo: Vyacheslav Ratynsky/InA “Ukrainian Photo”)

Deputy Nadezhda Savchenko spoke for the first time at a meeting of the Ukrainian Parliament. Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Andrei Parubiy, anticipating her speech, told how he was next to her on the Maidan. And then everyone in the world saw how she fought for freedom, he added. According to Parubiy, Savchenko became a symbol of Ukraine when it fought the “Russian occupier.”

Savchenko came out with a Ukrainian flag and hung it on the podium. “I am a people’s deputy, I have returned and am getting back to work,” she said.

Savchenko's speech was brief. She expressed gratitude to everyone who supported her. “I’m back and won’t let you forget about those guys who started dying on Maidan and continue to die in Donbass,” Deputy Savchenko announced her goal. According to her, she was at the cemetery and is sure that the dead will not be able to lie peacefully in their graves until Ukraine wins.

Nadezhda Savchenko’s first speech at a meeting of the Ukrainian Parliament (Photo: Efrem Lukatsky/AP)

“Nothing is forgotten, and no one is forgotten!” - Savchenko exclaimed. At the end of her short speech, she sang the Ukrainian anthem, which was echoed by all the deputies, and then removed her portrait from the podium, which had been hanging there all the time, and replaced it with photographs of those who continue to be imprisoned. During the speech, the banner “Freedom for Nadezhda Savchenko” continued to hang on the podium. Before the start of her speech, she spoke in the hall with Mustafa Dzhemilev, the leader of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars, banned by a court decision in Russia.

Savchenko was elected as a deputy from the Batkivshchyna party when she was already under arrest in Russia. A Russian court sentenced a Ukrainian serviceman to 22 years in prison in the case of the murder of VGTRK journalists in Donbass. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin pardoned Savchenko. This became known after the plane of the President of Ukraine delivered her from Rostov-on-Don to Kyiv. At the same time, Russians Alexander Alexandrov and Evgeny Yerofeyev, who were called “GRU fighters” in Kyiv, and former military personnel in Moscow, were sent to Moscow from Ukraine. They were convicted in Ukraine for participating in hostilities in the Donbass and pardoned by President Petro Poroshenko.

Upon returning to Ukraine, Savchenko announced that she would work as a deputy. She is listed as a member of the Committee on Security and National Defense.

Return of Savchenko and the “GRU fighters” Photo gallery

Nadezhda Savchenko gave a speech in the Verkhovna Rada