Nadia Savchenko now is in jail in Kiev

[Sharania]

This just came in:

BBC: Ukraine arrests pilot hero Savchenko over 'coup plot'

One of Ukraine's most famous MPs, Nadiya Savchenko, has been arrested on suspicion of planning an assault on parliament and supporting a coup.

The ex-military helicopter pilot was detained in parliament after MPs viewed evidence against her and voted to remove her immunity from prosecution.

She has not denied the charges.

She had been feted as a national hero after spending nearly two years in a Russian jail. She was captured fighting rebels in eastern Ukraine.

On Thursday MPs watched a video of her talking to two officers about plans to attack parliament.

She smiled and laughed in response, and did not question the authenticity of the video. She said Ukraine's "corrupt" government did need to be overthrown, but described the plot as a "provocation".

She was granted Ukraine's highest award - the Order of the Gold Star - after her release from jail in Russia in 2016 as part of a prisoner swap.

But on Thursday Ukraine's chief prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko told MPs that Ms Savchenko, 36, planned "a large-scale terrorist act" in Kiev.

He accused her of doing a deal with the Russian-backed rebels to "obtain the weapons necessary for such an attack, in particular 120mm calibre mortars, small arms, sniper rifles, combat grenades".

In April 2014, pro-Russian insurgents seized a large swathe of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine, and later declared self-rule, defying the Kiev government.

Ms Savchenko was captured in the region and sentenced to 22 years in jail in Russia for killing two Russian journalists, charges she denied.

She was pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin before her return to Ukraine.

Clashes continue in eastern Ukraine between the rebels and Ukrainian government forces, despite a ceasefire deal. Ukraine and its Western partners accuse Russia of backing the rebels with regular troops and heavy weapons - something Moscow denies.

RFE/RL: Savchenko Stripped Of Immunity In Ukraine, Detained Over 'Terror Plot'

KYIV -- Ukrainian security officers have detained Nadia Savchenko, a lawmaker and former captive of Russia who is accused of plotting to blow the roof off the parliament building in a "terrorist" attack.

State Security Service (SBU) agents detained Savchenko inside parliament on March 22, after fellow lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada voted to strip the fiery government opponent of her immunity from prosecution and authorize her arrest.

Savchenko was served papers saying that she is a suspect and was escorted from the Rada by the officers, with journalists in tow. She was not handcuffed and there was no sign of a protest, though dozens of supporters and critics had gathered outside the building earlier.

Sorry, I’m still riled up afterwards. Just… how?

You know, if this is true (and there is no reason to doubt the joint claim of the Ukrainian Prosecution office and Verkhovna Rada), this is disgusting and scary news. Just imagine – who else got turned by the Kremlin. They somehow turned Nadia Savchenko while she was in their custody. Just who else among the well known, powerful people in the West might be a Russian sleeping agent ready to commit all kinds of treason and destruction against their own nation, against their own people?

Well, some of you (already) know the answer. But what about others?

[Thermodolia]

Are you sure Russia actually turned her? And that she doesn’t think that more drastic mesures need to be taken to protect Ukraine?

[Chan Island]

I for one am glad they caught the plot before people got hurt. Really does make you wonder though how the years and politics can turn any soul. Mind you, maybe she just thought that Ukraine's government was too corrupt (because, in many ways, let's face it, it is) to bother with. Not necessarily a Putin double-agent.

[Sharania]

Are you sure Russia actually turned her? And that she doesn’t think that more drastic mesures need to be taken to protect Ukraine?

Consider this (also from RFE/RL): "Ukrainian Prisoner-Exchange Organizer Accused Of Plotting To Kill Poroshenko"

KYIV -- Ukrainian authorities have arrested a key negotiator in prisoner exchanges with Russia-backed separatists and accused him of plotting to kill President Petro Poroshenko and other top officials.

A Kyiv judge laid out the accusations against Volodymyr Ruban at a hearing on March 9, less than 24 hours after he was detained while crossing into government-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine -- allegedly with large amounts of weapons and ammunition hidden in a shipment of furniture.

The judge said that investigators claimed Ruban planned to use mortars, grenade launchers, guns, and explosives to carry out "armed attacks on the residences of statesmen and political leaders," including Poroshenko, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and National Security and Defense Council chief Oleksandr Turchynov "with the intention of killing them."

Ruban told the court he was innocent and suggested he had been set up, saying he was "not aware" that there were weapons hidden in the furniture. The judge ordered him held in pretrial custody for two months on suspicion of plotting terrorist acts and smuggling weapons.

Nadia Savchenko, a military aviator who was jailed in Russia for 22 months after being detained by separatists in the conflict zone in the east and is now a lawmaker, came to the courthouse to support Ruban.

After the hearing, Poroshenko tweeted that the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) chief Vasyl Hrytsak would oversee the investigation.

Hrytsak later told reporters that Ruban was suspected of plotting a series of terrorist attacks in Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine in coordination with the leader of Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's Donetsk region, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, and the separatists' tax chief, Aleksandr Timofeyev.

For me it is obvious now WHY she was supporting him.

[Sharania]

I for one am glad they caught the plot before people got hurt. Really does make you wonder though how the years and politics can turn any soul. Mind you, maybe she just thought that Ukraine's government was too corrupt (because, in many ways, let's face it, it is) to bother with. Not necessarily a Putin double-agent.

What kind of person on their own volition would plan and be willing to execute such kind of massacre? It has Kremlin and Lubyanka's fingerprints all over it.

[Washington Resistance Army]

If I lived anywhere in eastern Europe I'd probably plan an assault on the government too. They're all horrifically corrupt jokes.

[Chan Island]

I for one am glad they caught the plot before people got hurt. Really does make you wonder though how the years and politics can turn any soul. Mind you, maybe she just thought that Ukraine's government was too corrupt (because, in many ways, let's face it, it is) to bother with. Not necessarily a Putin double-agent.

What kind of person on their own volition would plan and be willing to execute such kind of massacre? It has Kremlin and Lubyanka's fingerprints all over it.

Literally every revolutionary in the history of humanity.

It might well have been the Kremlin's conditioning, but we don't know the full story or what was going on in her mind when planning this. Maybe it was a genuine sense that things in Ukraine would be better if the government was removed. Don't know, too early to tell.

[Sharania]

If I lived anywhere in eastern Europe I'd probably plan an assault on the government too. They're all horrifically corrupt jokes.

That's a knee-jerk ignorant view of the countries MOST of which are now members of both the EU and NATO and have been improving yearly economically and also in the fields of transparency and respect to the human rights. I.e. you are advocating doing something which only Putin would approve.

[Chan Island]

If I lived anywhere in eastern Europe I'd probably plan an assault on the government too. They're all horrifically corrupt jokes.

Need more nuance there. Estonia and Belarus have very different politics, corruption levels and international relations, yet are both in Eastern Europe.

[Washington Resistance Army]

If I lived anywhere in eastern Europe I'd probably plan an assault on the government too. They're all horrifically corrupt jokes.

Need more nuance there. Estonia and Belarus have very different politics, corruption levels and international relations, yet are both in Eastern Europe.

I tend to exclude the Baltics, but fair enough.

If I lived anywhere in eastern Europe I'd probably plan an assault on the government too. They're all horrifically corrupt jokes.

That's a knee-jerk ignorant view of the countries MOST of which are now members of both the EU and NATO and have been improving yearly economically and also in the fields of transparency and respect to the human rights. I.e. you are advocating doing something which only Putin would approve.

Well the Russians do pay me to agree with them...

[Sharania]

Need more nuance there. Estonia and Belarus have very different politics, corruption levels and international relations, yet are both in Eastern Europe.

No, for all intends and purposes Estonia is part of Nordics.

[Sharania]

I tend to exclude the Baltics, but fair enough.

What about Poland, Romania, Hungary? All of them are in the EU and NATO. All of them (especially Poland) are resisting Russian aggression. But here you are suggesting to coup their governments. Which leas us to:

Well the Russians do pay me to agree with them...

You know... given who else is posting here on NS... you might not even be joking here.

[Aellex]

A military coup would have probably been beneficial to Ukraine.

[Risottia]

You know, if this is true (and there is no reason to doubt the joint claim of the Ukrainian Prosecution office and Verkhovna Rada), this is disgusting and scary news. Just imagine – who else got turned by the Kremlin.

So, a fascist Ukrainian officer, famous for considering Pinochet a good model, joins a fascist militia famous for pillaging, starvating civilians and terrorising them, then gets elected in a nationalistic, anti-Russian party. Just as fascists tend to do, and her declared role model did, she plots a coup against the Ukrainian government.
Of course, she is a Russian sleeper agent. And maybe even your MPs in the West are! And maybe your mom too! Join the John Birch Society right now at 1-800-WHOS-A-COMMIE !

[Xmara]

Just who else among the well known, powerful people in the West might be a Russian sleeping agent ready to commit all kinds of treason and destruction against their own nation, against their own people?

I didn't think I’d ever see the words “Russian sleeper agent” after the Cold War.

[Kartofian]

It's funny just how quickly the Ukrainian government declared one of their (ex)heroes a a traitor.

Need I remind anyone that just a couple of years ago, whilst in Russian custody, she was extolled as a national hero?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28249884
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31760381

And apparently now the OP thinks she was converted, mayhap it was Putin's special seduction technique.

Methinks her arrest, and the charges, are politically motivated. She had the gall to question the Ukrainian security services after all.

What's especially funny is the logic applied by the Ukrainian accusers.

Conspiring against the Poroshenko government = bad and traitorous

Conspiring against the Yankovich government (which many current officials did) = good

[MERIZoC]

lol wasn't this lady palling around with fascists a while back? Fucking owned, hope she rots in prison.

Just imagine – who else got turned by the Kremlin. They somehow turned Nadia Savchenko while she was in their custody. Just who else among the well known, powerful people in the West might be a Russian sleeping agent ready to commit all kinds of treason and destruction against their own nation, against their own people?

lmfao
Hillary losing really had an impact on you, didn't it?

[Shofercia]

lol wasn't this lady palling around with fascists a while back? Fucking owned, hope she rots in prison.

Just imagine – who else got turned by the Kremlin. They somehow turned Nadia Savchenko while she was in their custody. Just who else among the well known, powerful people in the West might be a Russian sleeping agent ready to commit all kinds of treason and destruction against their own nation, against their own people?

lmfao
Hillary losing really had an impact on you, didn't it?

If her coup was successful, Sharania would be telling us how magnificently she held off those who attempted to coup her, probably calling them "Russian Sleeper Agents" which would've been enough proof for some.

[Mujahidah]

lol wasn't this lady palling around with fascists a while back? Fucking owned, hope she rots in prison.

Just imagine – who else got turned by the Kremlin. They somehow turned Nadia Savchenko while she was in their custody. Just who else among the well known, powerful people in the West might be a Russian sleeping agent ready to commit all kinds of treason and destruction against their own nation, against their own people?

lmfao
Hillary losing really had an impact on you, didn't it?

You really like Putin that much?

[MERIZoC]

lol wasn't this lady palling around with fascists a while back? Fucking owned, hope she rots in prison.


lmfao
Hillary losing really had an impact on you, didn't it?

You really like Putin that much?

I despise him but this has nothing to do with Putin lol

[The Parkus Empire]

I can't say I have much sympathy for Ukraine. It's a shame they are throwing Nadia under the bus though, she had grit

[Sovaal]

Ooo, some Game of Thrones shit going on...

But yah, generally it’s in a government’s best interest to not let coups happen.

[Sharania]

SBU arrests Savchenko on charges of plotting terrorist attack in Kyiv

Savchenko was arrested on March 22, right after the parliament voted to approve three requests made by Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko: to strip Savchenko of her immunity from prosecution, allow her to be detained, and to arrest her.
Savchenko didn’t deny the allegations, although she called them “a political provocation and surrealism.”

According to Lutsenko, Savchenko, together with the head of the Officers Corp organization and a mediator in prisoner swaps between Ukraine and Russian-led forces in Donbas Volodymyr Ruban, in the middle of 2017 conspired with the leaders of the Russian-led separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts, plotting attacks, and smuggling weapons from the occupied territories of Donbas.

Lutsenko said that the SBU found out about their plans from four Ukrainian army officers from the western city of Khmelnytskyi whom Savchenko and Ruban allegedly tried to recruit. The officers pretended to accept the proposal from Savchenko, and reported it to the SBU, which tracked and recorded their preparations for the attacks, Lutsenko said.

Lutsenko told lawmakers that their plan was to blow up the government and guest seating areas of parliament, then destroy the Rada ceiling using mortars, and to finish off all the lawmakers who survived by shooting them with machine guns. They would also bombard the governmental block of the city with shells fired from a mortar set up on Trukhaniv island in the center of Kyiv, Lutsenko said.

As evidence, Lutsenko showed lawmakers a video in which Savchenko and Ruban discuss the plan of the future attack with two Ukrainian soldiers on Dec. 1 at a military base in Khmelnytskyi.

Savchenko says she wants to launch an attack inside the parliament building on a day when all the ministers, force services and lawmakers gather to listen to the president’s report. She says she plans to use eight grenades for the attack, which will cause the large chandelier fall from the ceiling. If the plan doesn’t work, she says she can shoot with an assault rifle.

“I suggest a coup d’état. They should be removed physically. And all at once. On one day and from the inside,” Savchenko says in the video.

One of the soldiers asks Savchenko and Ruban who will execute the attack and Savchenko confirms she will.

“That’s her (Savchenko’s) dream,” Ruban says.

Lutsenko said Ruban and Savchenko smuggled the first batch of weapons from the occupied territories of Donbas in late November, and then decided to get more.

Ruban was arrested at the Mayorsk checkpoint near the Russian-occupied city of Horlivka in Donetsk Oblast some 580 kilometers southeast of Kyiv on March 8 while allegedly trying to smuggle the second batch of weapons into Ukrainian-controlled territory. He is accused of possessing illegal firearms, preparing terror attacks and attempting to assassinate President Petro Poroshenko and the country’s top officials.

In the vote to strip Savchenko of immunity, 291 lawmakers voted for, with only eight people opposing, six of whom are members of the Opposition Bloc faction, an offshoot of the Party of Regions – the party of Ukraine’s ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.

The same lawmakers voted against her arrest.

According to Savchenko, the only way for lawmakers, and for Ukraine, to avoid “terrorist attacks and hard situations” is to change the electoral legislation, change the constitution, and give the nation more powers to make decisions about the state.

“You’re making anti-heroes of yesterday’s heroes only because they don’t agree with the political system,” she said in parliament on March 22.

Savchenko was captured by Russian-backed separatists in June 2014 in Luhansk Oblast, transported to Russia, and imprisoned on bogus charges. She was released after almost two years in exchange for two Russian intelligence officers captured in Ukraine. She was returned to Ukraine in a presidential plane in May 2016.

While in jail in Russia, she became a Batkivshchyna Party lawmaker. The party, led by Ukraine’s ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, expelled Savchenko in late 2016 after the news broke that she had held a secret meeting with the leaders of the Kremlin-installed occupation authorities in the Donbas.

I think that everyone should read this thoroughly. Most of all – those calling for “understanding” with Russia and the people who voted for Trump/right-wingers/anti-immigration agitators… Oh, wait – they are the same people! Well, this makes my task easier:

Dear human beings of the Rightward persuasion! Yeah, we heard it all about “dem terrorists”. Now listen you – THIS is a prime example of the WHITE STATE-SPONSORED TERRORISM IN EUROPE! Put away – just for now – your daily dose of /pol/, Breitbart and Daily Stormer and be honest with yourself.

Many Americans, including those in leadership positions (you know who), believe the dominant terrorist threat to the United States originates abroad and is motivated by an extremist interpretation of Islam. They’re wrong. The narrative that posits terrorism is primarily a tactic of foreign-born extremist Muslims is woefully and dangerously incomplete.

White supremacist groups are growing in size, lethality and capability. While the United States spent more than a decade disrupting terrorist organizations abroad, a different threat was growing here at home. Its ambitions were different, but its tactics increasingly mirrored those being used by our adversaries in al-Qaeda, ISIS and other groups. This should not come as a surprise.

Naturally, Russia and other enemies are using these domestic WHITE terrorists whenever they can. This is what we have seen in Savchenko’s case. There are many Brevik fans in Russia (and among NS regular posters of certain persuasions) who’d applaud the actions of Savchenko and Ruban’s murderous cabal lying to themselves – and others – that this would result in something good. No. Bloody murder and massacre does not result in ANYTHING good!

Stop whitewashing them and treating them like just a bunch of folks exercising their constitutional rights and calling them exactly what they are: white nationalist, racist, far-right terrorists IN EMPLOY OF RUSSIA.

[Yami-Chan]

Sad that in some backwater a Russian backed coup can be caught in a matter of days

But in the US even after two years people refuse and lie about the coup there, or in Italy and the Brexit campaign.

Regardless good to see the Russian Menace being stopped. Maybe we can invade them soon and make a democracy.

[Sharania]

Hey, lets collect them all here!

A military coup would have probably been beneficial to Ukraine.

Methinks her arrest, and the charges, are politically motivated. She had the gall to question the Ukrainian security services after all.

If her coup was successful, Sharania would be telling us how magnificently she held off those who attempted to coup her, probably calling them "Russian Sleeper Agents" which would've been enough proof for some.

I can't say I have much sympathy for Ukraine. It's a shame they are throwing Nadia under the bus though, she had grit

And now - Nadia Savchennko herself:

"I propose a coup," the video shows Savchenko saying. "And that is why they have to be removed physically. And all at once. That is the only way."

Referring to top officials including Poroshenko and National Security and Defense Council chief Oleksandr Turchynov, she says: "All of them must be blown up in the [city] center."

At one point while the video was playing, Savchenko stood next to the parliament's podium and shouted "Ba-bakh!" -- the sound of an explosion.

"I am not so much interested in the government buildings; I am more interested in their residential places. I think they start running away, and when they do not have any place to run to, all of them start running," Savchenko is shown saying on the video.

You - all of you - are endorsing her as person and her as the proponent of the white terrorism. Are you glad of yourself?