Lack of right papers bars Ukraine doctors from seeing Savchenko in Moscow jail – source

The reason why Ukrainian doctors were not allowed to see Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko at a detention center in Moscow on Friday was they had no authorization for this from the Russian Foreign Ministry, a source familiar with the situation said.

"A foreign national must have documents issued at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation to be able to visit a penitentiary institution. The Ukrainian [doctors] who arrived at the detention center today had no such documents," the source told Interfax.

Earlier, the Ukrainian president's office had said in a statement that Ukrainian doctors had been prohibited from visiting Savchenko.

The office said the doctors included the Ukrainian Health Ministry's chief outside gastroenterology consultant, Natalia Kharchenko, and the head of the neurology department at Kyiv's Bogomolets National Medical University, Larysa Sokolova.

Savchenko has been in custody in Moscow since July 2014 on a charge of complicity in the killing of Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine. She denies the charge and claims she was abducted and brought to Russia. On December 13, she declared a hunger strike. However, on March 5, she agreed to consume meat broth because of her deteriorating condition.

Ukraine demands the release of Savchenko, who, after her arrest, has been elected to the Ukrainian parliament and appointed a member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly.