Savchenko supports jailed Ukrainians at Russia's Supreme Court:
By Tom Balmforth
MOSCOW -- Ukrainian lawmaker Nadia Savchenko traveled to Moscow to support two jailed compatriots appealing their convictions at Russia’s Supreme Court, a surprise trip that was widely believed to be her first visit to Russia since the former captive returned home in a swap deal.
Savchenko, a military aviator who was jailed in Russia in 2014 and became a symbol of Ukrainian resilience amid the conflict between Kyiv’s forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, continues to campaign for the return of Ukrainians she considers hostages of the Kremlin.
She attended a six-hour hearing on October 26 at the Supreme Court in central Moscow, where Ukrainians Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh unsuccessfully appealed against their convictions and long prison sentences on charges of fighting alongside Chechen rebels.
"Once again, I've been convinced that Ukrainians can expect no fair trial in Russia," Savchenko told journalists after the judge left the lower court’s decisions in place. "I came to Russia with one objective: to support these guys because I have been down this road this myself."
Savchenko got an icy reception in Moscow, where Russian media besieged her with questions in a courtroom and a city councilor branded her a "murderer," while some Ukrainians questioned whether she was being "used" for Russian ends.
Klykh and Karpyuk were sentenced in May to prison terms of 20 and 22 1/2 years, respectively, after being convicted of fighting on the side of separatists against federal forces in 1994-95, during the first of two post-Soviet wars in southern Russia's Chechnya region.
The Memorial human rights organization has classified them as "political prisoners," calling them victims of an anti-Ukrainian campaign mounted in Russia during the pro-Western Euromaidan protests that toppled the Kremlin-backed Ukrainian president in February 2014.
Karpyuk and Klykh deny the charges outright, saying they have never been to Chechnya and that they were tortured into confessing in a case launched after relations between Moscow and Kyiv soured.
Amnesty International called Karpyuk and Klykh "the victims of a travesty of justice" and a "propaganda-driven show trial."
"Russia’s case against these men defies reason. The numerous fair-trial violations and the unconvincing prosecution evidence all point to a fabricated case," Amnesty regional director John Dalhuisen said in a statement on October 26. "They were denied access to their lawyers of choice and allege that their confessions were forced from them as a result of torture."
Savchenko compared their ordeal to her own.
She says she was captured by Russia-backed fighters in eastern Ukraine in June 2014 and taken illegally to Russia, where she was sentenced to 22 years in prison in March of this year for her alleged role in the deaths of two Russian journalists in the conflict zone, a charge she rejects.
Her hunger strikes, tough talk, and defiance at trial made her a symbol of resistance to Russia, and she returned home a hero in May after being pardoned by President Vladimir Putin in an exchange for two Russians convicted of terrorism in Ukraine for allegedly fighting alongside separatists.
Savchenko consistently maintained that Russia had no right to prosecute her. Elected to parliament while in Russian custody, she has fought for the release of Ukrainians still held in Russia, including Karpyuk, Klykh, film director Oleh Sentsov, and Oleksandr Kolchenko.
Savchenko pointedly refused to speak to the press during recesses at the October 26 hearing, and her criticism of the Russian justice system came in brief remarks to journalists after the ruling.
"I only came here to give [Karpyuk and Klykh] some warm words and not to speak to the press. This comment is over. Goodbye," she said before storming out.
Karpyuk and Klykh are in custody in Grozny, the Chechen capital, and watched the proceedings silently from a small white cage shown in a video link on monitors in the Moscow courtroom.
Savchenko wore traditional Ukrainian dress. During breaks she spoke to Karpyuk and Klykh, who thanked her for being there, and they exchanged chants of "Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes."
When the judges adjourned to deliberate, TV crews poured into the courtroom, cornering Savchenko and besieging her with questions. She refused to speak, standing with her arms crossed, sometimes scowling, sometimes smiling, and staring up at an overhead monitor showing Klykh and Karpyuk in their cage.
She was also confronted by Dmitry Zakharov, a Moscow city councilor and prominent advocate of anti-Kyiv forces in eastern Ukraine, who accused Savchenko of conducting a PR stunt by coming to Moscow. She ignored him.
At the beginning of the hearing, Zakharov told TV reporters that he had come to the Supreme Court to tell Savchenko never to return to Russia. "Savchenko is a murderer," he said. "She was pardoned, but she is still a murderer. This has been proven by a court of law. She has come here to stage a circus. This won't come pass though in Russia because here, unlike in Ukraine, there is the law."
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said there was nothing untoward in Savchenko traveling to Russia. "She is not banned from entering the territory of the Russian Federation. Therefore, there is nothing to react to here," state-run RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.
A former lawyer for Savchenko, Ilya Novikov, said that she flew to Moscow from Minsk after an unsuccessful attempt to drive from Belarus to Moscow in the early hours of October 26. "There was a strange cordon on the road. They took her passport and the driver's for three hours," he said, adding that Russian authorities "didn't detain her, but they also didn't let her through."
Savchenko's trip to Russia was not universally welcomed in Ukraine. Nationalist lawmaker Borislav Bereza wrote that "Savchenko should not have gone to Moscow. The Kremlin lets in Ukrainians only for their games. And if they've let you in, then they're going to use you."
Kremlin brushes off e-mail leak allegedly showing Russian hand in Ukraine conflict:
By Carl Schreck
The Kremlin has challenged the authenticity of leaked e-mails purportedly from the inbox of presidential aide Vladislav Surkov that appear to show the Russian government's coordination with separatists in eastern Ukraine.
In comments relayed by state-run TASS and other Russian news agencies on October 26, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not explicitly state that e-mails published by the Ukrainian hacker group CyberHunta on October 25 were not genuine.
But he appeared to cast doubt on the authenticity of the leaked documents, saying that Surkov, a longtime adviser to President Vladimir Putin, "doesn't use electronic mail."
"Therefore, someone must have sweated quite a bit to compose this document," Peskov said, though he did not clarify specifically which "document" he was talking about.
"I can tell you: This is not him," he said, referring to Surkov.
The cache of e-mails published by CyberHunta begins in September 2013 and runs through November 2014. That period covers Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and the subsequent war between Russia-backed separatists and Kyiv's forces in eastern Ukraine.
Russia has consistently denied accusations by Kyiv and Western governments that it is providing the separatists with troops, weapons, and other backing in the conflict, which the UN says has killed more than 9,600 people, despite significant evidence of such support.
Several documents contained in the leak suggest Surkov was a Kremlin point man in dealing with the separatists. These include one purportedly sent from the office of Russian tycoon Konstantin Malofeyev, who is believed to have bankrolled much of the separatist movement in Ukraine.
That PDF file, allegedly sent in an e-mail dated May 12, 2014, features a list of "candidates" for leadership posts in separatist-controlled areas of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. The list of names includes Denis Pushilin, the leader of separatists in the region, and former separatist commander Igor Girkin, also known as Strelkov.
When separatist leadership posts were announced three days later, several of the self-styled officials were granted the same titles recommended in the document purportedly sent to Surkov from Malofeyev's office.
Like Surkov, Malofeyev has been hit with U.S. and EU sanctions for his alleged role in the conflict.
The e-mail dump also appears to show Surkov's office directly interacting with the separatist leadership. One communication dated June 14, 2014, appears to have been sent from Pushilin and includes attachments listing names of those killed or wounded in the conflict during a two-week period.
Peskov's claim that Surkov does not use e-mail is not contradicted by the cache leaked by CyberHunta. A large number of the communications suggest they were handled by Surkov's underlings and include requests to pass the e-mails on to Surkov.
Oleksandr Tkachuk, chief of staff for the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), told RFE/RL on October 26 that his agency managed "to authenticate a number of documents in the release" but conceded that "there is not enough evidence to believe the entire [collection] of documents found in Surkov's e-mails is actually original or authentic."
"In order to confirm their authenticity, we need access to the e-mail account and original downloaded e-mails from the account," Tkachuk said.
A day before CyberHunta published the cache of e-mails purportedly from Surkov's office, the group claimed that it hacked Surkov's e-mail account and found documents with plans for the "destabilization of the political situation in Ukraine" between November 2016 and March 2017 with the goal of forcing Kyiv "to hold early parliamentary and presidential elections."
Following that claim, Peskov said on October 25 that Surkov was "a talented man" and that "many allegations against him by hackers in Russia and elsewhere are mainly false."
Two sources within Ukraine's security apparatus told RFE/RL they do not believe the alleged destabilization plan is authentic, and Tkachuk said Ukrainian authorities had not determined whether it is real.
"The PDF files do look strange. That's why we would like to see the originals," he said. "Then we could do forensic analysis and make a final conclusion."
Surkov previously served as a key adviser to Putin on domestic political matters and currently advises the Russian president on the West-leaning former Soviet countries of Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. (w/ Christopher Miller in Kyiv, TASS, UNIAN, and Interfax)