US Ambassador to Ukraine: Savchenko exchanging for Russians in the USA is funny

Nadezhda Savchenko. Photo: tsn.ua

US Ambassador to Ukraine Jeffrey Payette does not believe and considers the option of exchanging the people's deputy of Ukraine Nadezhda Savchenko for the Russians Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko to serve their sentences in the US as absurd.

“The trade offer is just ridiculous. Savchenko is being held illegally in Russia, was she captured illegally? and according to the Minsk agreements, she must be released, period,” the US ambassador told reporters on Tuesday in Kyiv.

Payette noted that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko made a “generous offer” to exchange Savchenko for two Russian special forces, and “this ends the discussion.”

“We are not considering this possibility,” said Will Stevens, a spokesman for the US Embassy in Moscow.

As reported, on Tuesday, information appeared citing a source that Savchenko, sentenced Russian court to 22 years of imprisonment, can be exchanged for a group of Russians, including those serving the sentence in the US, Bout and Yaroshenko.

“Currently, consultations are underway, including through confidential channels, on the possibility of releasing N. Savchenko through an exchange. The Russian side offered a list of its fellow citizens in exchange for the extradition of whom it is ready to release the former Ukrainian soldier,” one of the interlocutors told the Interfax agency.

According to him, this list includes businessman Viktor But and pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, sentenced to long terms in the United States. “There are also Russians among them, whose activities are usually not advertised,” the source noted.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, said the day before that no decisions had yet been made regarding Savchenko’s possible exchange.

“So far, I can only state that no action has been taken; de jure and de facto, Savchenko is currently a convicted person,” Peskov said.

The people's deputy of Ukraine, the representative of Ukraine in the humanitarian subgroup Irina Gerashchenko believes that such information indicates that the Russian leadership is not worried about its servicemen sent to the Donbass.

“Who are we talking about and who is Moscow fighting for the liberation of? Oh, these are important people for Putin's regime. World-famous arms dealer and... drug dealer,” the deputy wrote on her Facebook.

Pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was arrested in 2010 in Liberia, was later extradited to the United States, where he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges of engaging in criminal conspiracy to smuggle cocaine in the US for $ 100 million.

Viktor Bout, in turn, was extradited to the United States from Thailand and received a term of 25 years for arms smuggling - the official accusation sounded like a plot to kill American citizens, because the weapon that Booth sold was intended for rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC ), recognized by Washington as a terrorist organization.

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