Daily Times

KIEV: Ukraine’s defiant pilot Nadiya Savchenko sang the national anthem Tuesday in a strident first appearance in parliament since her release in a prisoner swap with Russia last week.

The 35-year-old member of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s populist party strode to the podium draped in the flag of Ukraine and holding one of Crimea – annexed by Russia in March 2014 – at the opening of an emotional session.

Savchenko has turned into a national symbol of resistance to Russia since joining a volunteer battalion fighting pro-Kremlin eastern separatist insurgents and then being taken prisoner in June 2014.

She then mysteriously turned up in a Russian detention centre and was sentenced to 22 years behind bars for her alleged role in the murder of two Moscow state television journalists covering the war.

Her release in exchange for two purported members of Russia’s military intelligence service, who were captured during a May 2015 battle, came after months of international negotiations and was celebrated in the West.

During her detention Savchenko was elected in absentia to Ukraine’s parliament. She also staged a series of prolonged hunger strikes – which were dismissed on Tuesday by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as a staged act.

“She is a rather peculiar lady and, by the way, fairly plump,” he said in an online questions-and-answer session with one of Russia’s most popular dailies.