Ukrainian ombudswoman demands private meeting with Ukrainian pilot Savchenko

Verkhovna Rada Commissioner on Human Rights Valeria Lutkovska has sent a letter to her Russian colleague Ella Pamfilova and ombudsperson of Voronezh region, Tatyana Zrazhevskaya, asking that they allow her to meet with Ukrainian military pilot Nadia Savchenko, who is being held at a detention facility in Voronezh, Russia.

"According to the present information received, Savchenko has been forcefully moved from the territory of our country to Russian Federation, so became a victim of kidnapping by a foreign state," reads the letter, as ombudsperson's press service reported on Friday.

On Thursday during the press conference Lutkovska said that the situation with Savchenko now looks like an act of international kidnapping.

As reported, Savchenko, a 31-year-old navigator, served with the Ukrainian peacekeeping force in Iraq, after which she graduated from the Ivan Kozhedub Kharkiv Air Force University in 2009.

She was fighting with the Aidar volunteer battalion in eastern Ukraine when she was captured in June near the town of Schastia, a suburb of Luhansk.

It was reported on Wednesday that Savchenko is being held at a detention facility in Voronezh and has been indicted for complicity in murder.

"Investigative bodies have indicted Savchenko for complicity in the killing of VGTRK journalists outside Luhansk," a spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee said.

The Investigative Committee claims that Savchenko was detained in Russia after crossing the border without documents and pretending to be a refugee.