Here's more from RFE/RL's news desk on Nadia Savchenko's dramatic announcement:

Ukraine's Savchenko Goes On Hunger Strike For POWs

Nadia Savchenko, the Ukrainian military officer who spent nearly two years in a Russian jail, says she is going on hunger strike for Ukraine's prisoners of war.

"I am again declaring a hunger strike against the inaction of government officials of the whole world on the question of the release of Ukrainians from captivity," Savchenko, who was elected to parliament while in prison, said in Kyiv on August 2. "I will keep the hunger strike until the day of a positive result."

Savchenko, a helicopter navigator, was captured in June 2014, and a Russian court handed her a 22-year prison sentence after finding her guilty of involvement in the deaths of two Russian journalists covering the Ukraine conflict.

Freed in May as part of a prisoner swap, she has regularly called for further prisoner exchanges and direct peace talks with Russia-backed separatists.

"What have their patriotic slogans and deceitful actions brought to us? And what has [Ukraine's eastern region of] Donbas gained from this politicized war and from Russia?" Savchenko asked on August 2. "Death, ruins, plundering by Russian combatants, and the rise of its own [local] unscrupulous oligarchs."

More than 9,400 have been killed since hostilities erupted in Ukraine’s east in April 2014.

Nadia Savchenko has been giving a press conference and has made what seems like a dramatic announcement. Here's a transcript of a soundbite, courtesy of RFE/RL's audio desk:

"I have tried many methods to fight for our guys [eds: Ukrainian prisoners of war] in the same way that the world was fighting for me [eds: while she was in a Russian prison]. Now, I will fight for them in the same way that I fought for myself. One of the mechanisms that accelerated my release [from a Russian prison] was a hunger protest against the inaction of the Ukrainian government. Starting from today [August 2], I am again declaring a hunger strike against the inaction of government officials of the whole world on the question of the release of Ukrainians from captivity. I will keep the hunger strike until the day of a positive result."