Peripheral to Ukraine, but still pretty pertinent:
Potentially quite a big story here: Meduza has interviewed a Ukraine separatist who claims to have been involved in the capture of jailed Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko (pictured):
He goes by the military nickname “Ilim.” A fighter for the Luhansk People's Republic, he says he is the one who personally captured Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian soldier convicted earlier this month of murder and sentenced to 22 years in prison by a Russian court. In an interview with Meduza's special correspondent Ilya Azar, “Ilim” confirmed the main argument Savchenko's lawyers say proves her innocence: she was captured before noon on June 17, 2014—before the shelling of Metalist, a village outside Luhansk, which killed two Russian journalists from the media outletVGTRK. These deaths (as well as charges of crossing into Russia illegally) were precisely why a Russian court in Rostov put Savchenko on trial. Ilim also says he's sure that Savchenko headed a sniper unit and acted as a spotter for Ukrainian artillery fire at Metalist. (Ilya Novikov, one of Savchenko's lawyers, however, says this claim is no more than a “legend.”) Ilim wasn't invited to testify at Savchenko's trial. In his place, the court heard from two “militia” combatants: Dmitry “Snipe” Oslovsky (who investigators say participated in Savchenko's detention) and Sergei “Cap” Moiseev (who allegedly brought her to Luhansk). These men told the court that Savchenko was apprehended only after the killing of the two Russian journalists.
Ilim says he didn't hide from investigators; the court simply never called him. Before speaking to Meduza, he says he never even gave a single interview during the entire conflict in eastern Ukraine. There's almost no information available about Ilim on the Internet. According to the Kiev-based project “Peacemaker,” which maintains records of all the individuals serving in the “militias” of the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics (the LNR and DNR), “Ilim” is really a Ukrainian citizen named Andrei Tikhonov—the deputy commander of a detached commandant regiment. Ilim calls himself a lieutenant colonel and a soldier in the LNR.
Read the entire article here