Savchenko feels fine despite hunger strike – Federal Penitentiary Service

Doctors are monitoring Ukrainian citizen Nadia Savchenko, who is in custody. She feels fine, but she will be transferred to a medical establishment if her health deteriorates," Oleg Korshunov, deputy director of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, told reporters.

"She is under close daily observation. If, God forbid, there is even the slightest deterioration, she will immediately be transferred to hospital," Korshunov told reporters on Friday.

If Savchenko is hospitalized, she will be assisted by regular doctors, not Federal Penitentiary Service officials, he said.

Korshunov said that Savchenko is not losing much weight and feels fine, despite the hunger strike.

"Her blood pressure and blood sugar levels are being tested regularly. The tests are normal," Korshunov said.

Savchenko has been under arrest at a Moscow detention facility since July 2014 on charges of complicity in the killing of Russian journalists Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin in southeastern Ukraine, which she has denied.

Since she was detained, she has been elected a member of the Ukrainian parliament and a member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Ukraine has been demanding her release.

She went on a hunger strike on December 12, 2014 in protest against her arrest. On March 5, 2015, she agreed to consume broth after her condition deteriorated. She later resumed the hunger strike.