Motion for a resolution | Doc. 13676 | 23 January 2015

Call on the Russian authorities for the immediate release of Nadia Savchenko and other illegally detained prisoners of war

Signatories: Mr Christopher CHOPE, United Kingdom, EC ; Ms Liv Holm ANDERSEN, Denmark, ALDE ; Mr Volodymyr ARIEV, Ukraine, EPP/CD ; Mr Reha DENEMEÇ, Turkey, EC ; Lady Diana ECCLES, United Kingdom, EC ; Ms Tülin ERKAL KARA, Turkey, EC ; Ms Iryna GERASHCHENKO, Ukraine, EPP/CD ; Mr Valeriu GHILETCHI, Republic of Moldova, EPP/CD ; Ms Dzhema GROZDANOVA, Bulgaria, EPP/CD ; Mr Mehmet Kasim GÜLPINAR, Turkey, EC ; Mr Michael Aastrup JENSEN, Denmark, ALDE ; Ms Yuliya L'OVOCHKINA, Ukraine, EC ; Mr Jacob LUND, Denmark, SOC ; Ms Liliana PALIHOVICI, Republic of Moldova, EPP/CD ; Mr Kimmo SASI, Finland, EPP/CD ; Mr Ömer SELVİ, Turkey, EC ; Mr Serhiy SOBOLEV, Ukraine, EPP/CD ; Mr Robert WALTER, United Kingdom, EC ; Mr Morten WOLD, Norway, EC ; Ms Kristýna ZELIENKOVÁ, Czech Republic, ALDE

This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only those who have signed it.

On 18 June 2014, then Lieutenant Savchenko was captured by pro-Russian separatists near Luhansk while on a mission to rescue wounded Ukrainian soldiers. She was dressed in a Ukrainian military uniform and carried a firearm, clearly making her subject to Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention, which delineates criteria for Prisons of War status. Currently, she is kept prisoner in a civilian Russian detention center, facing charges of complicity in the June 17 killing of two Russian journalists, Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin, who died during a mortar attack on a separatist checkpoint outside Luhansk.

In early November 2014, while still held prisoner in Russia, Ms Savchenko resigned from the Ukrainian Air Force after being elected a Member of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada in the October 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary elections. Currently, Ms Savchenko is nominated to be on the new Ukrainian Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

The Parliamentary Assembly strongly condemns the illegal abduction and imprisonment of former Lieutenant Savchenko and at least 30 other Ukrainian service members and the breaches by the Russian authorities of the Third Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (75 U.N.T.S. 135).

The Assembly calls on the Russian authorities to respect international conventions and urges the Russian authorities to immediately end the illegal detention of Ms Savchenko and other prisoners of war and ensure their safe return to Ukraine.