02:19Ukraine: Savchenko addresses parliament for 1st time as deputy since release
Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko addressed the Verkhovna Rada in Kiev, Tuesday, as a lawmaker for the first time since her release last week following her imprisonment for murdering two Russian journalists back in June 2014.
In addressing parliament, Savchenko announced: "I will not let you forget about those guys who died for Ukraine on Maidan Square and continue to die in Donbass."
Savchenko then led the deputies in a rendition of the Ukrainian national anthem before removing a long-standing portrait of herself. She then revealed that she was replacing it with those Ukrainian fighters who were still held in Russian detention.
Savchenko had been sentenced to 22 years in prison after being convicted of directing fire that killed two Russian journalists, Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin in Ukraine's Lugansk Region. She is accused of relaying the coordinates of a checkpoint where the two Russian journalists were subsequently killed by Ukrainian artillery in June 2014. She denied culpability for all the charges.
A member of the Ukrainian Batkivshchyna Party, Savchenko was appointed to the Ukrainian parliament's Committee on National Security and Defence following her release.
02:19Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko addressed the Verkhovna Rada in Kiev, Tuesday, as a lawmaker for the first time since her release last week following her imprisonment for murdering two Russian journalists back in June 2014.
In addressing parliament, Savchenko announced: "I will not let you forget about those guys who died for Ukraine on Maidan Square and continue to die in Donbass."
Savchenko then led the deputies in a rendition of the Ukrainian national anthem before removing a long-standing portrait of herself. She then revealed that she was replacing it with those Ukrainian fighters who were still held in Russian detention.
Savchenko had been sentenced to 22 years in prison after being convicted of directing fire that killed two Russian journalists, Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin in Ukraine's Lugansk Region. She is accused of relaying the coordinates of a checkpoint where the two Russian journalists were subsequently killed by Ukrainian artillery in June 2014. She denied culpability for all the charges.
A member of the Ukrainian Batkivshchyna Party, Savchenko was appointed to the Ukrainian parliament's Committee on National Security and Defence following her release.