Nadezhda Savchenko: Putin’s challenge to the world
It can happen that NATO troops, legally stationed in one of the world’s hot spots, get ambushed by the local insurgents. The unprovoked attack forces our soldiers to return fire. As a result, two Russian journalists without any identifications of being members of the press, unlawfully embedded with the illegal militants, are killed. Is it just an unfortunate incident, like many others in which dozens of reporters are killed each year? Not so, if you believe Russian officials.
On March 21 and 22, a customary Russian kangaroo court convicted and sentenced to 22 years in jail a Ukrainian female military officer Nadezhda Savchenko for her crime of being an artillery spotter for the government forces in the Eastern Ukraine, where the local separatists aided by Russian regulars carved for themselves a breakaway territory. It didn’t matter that the accusations of causing death by directing imprecise mortar fire at two Russian reporters, who illegally entered Ukraine and wore no signs identifying them as members of press in the crowd of local militants, were ridiculous to begin with. Worse were the irrefutable facts that Savchenko not only could not do such things, even if she wished to, but the proven timetable showing that she was captured and later smuggled over the Russian border well before the reporters were killed. And never mind that all this happened on the territory of another sovereign nation! After more than a year of deliberation, as the prosecution and witnesses repeatedly changed their stories and still were unable to prove anything even accordingly to Russia’s own loose interpretation of law and justice, the Russian court convicts a Ukrainian soldiers for doing her duty on her territory in lawful defence of her country recognized by the world and Russia itself! While on trial, Savchenko was elected to the Ukrainian parliament and became a delegate to the Council of Europe. The European and world leaders and organizations repeatedly called for immediate release of Nadezhda Savchenko. The brave Ukrainian went on hunger strike a few times to protest the blatant manipulations of the law and justice by the court and Russian officials.
In modern, increasingly authoritarian Russian, cases of such political magnitude cannot be initiated and proceed without approval from the very top. This case and sentences, along with the annexation of Crimea and other incursion around the globe, is a message from Russian president Putin to the world: Russian jurisdiction is wherever we say it is; Russian law applies wherever we say it does.
By the same logic, no military personal or even a regular citizen in the world is safe from being kidnapped and prosecuted in Russia, if its officials decide that Russian citizens or interest were in harm’s way, in spite of of circumstances.
All democratic countries, must take a firm stand against this in-your-face disregard of all international laws and conventions. The case of Nadezhda Savchenko is not only a challenge to Ukrainian sovereignty; it challenges the sovereignty of the West also. Do not make a mistake by assuming that it is a matter of a local conflict in far away places. Putin’s Russia stakes a claim at being the world superpower with vested interests all over the globe. Canadian Arctic is one of those places of interest.
The western democracies must finally put an end to Putin’s not so secret encroaching on the rule of international law and basic human rights. Otherwise, we may see a NATO officer put on trial in Russia for protecting his country. If you think it cannot ever happen – ask Ukrainians.
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