The Kremlin’s No. 1 hostage

Writing about hostages of the Russian state, I neglected to mention the number one hostage: the Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko*. She was fighting with the Ukrainian army in 2014 when she was captured or kidnapped by the separatists and/or their Russian handlers. Savchenko was later moved to Moscow and charged with murder: she is accused of directing the artillery fire that killed two Russian reporters in summer 2014.

The whole thing is a screaming outrage. Smearing a POW who defended her country with a double murder charge is so beyond the pale, so dishonorable, so unmartial – and so typically KGB.

*Savchenko is referred to as Nadezhda in the Russian-language media, in keeping with the Russo-Ukrainian tradition of localizing first names. Hers means “faith.”

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