MEP Rebecca Harms deported to Moscow
(BRUSSELS2) German Green MEP Rebecca Harms traveled to Moscow and back today (Thursday 25 September). She wanted to attend the trial of Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian army pilot. The MEP could not go further than the airport hall. She was turned away. Considered persona non grata, she could only take another flight to Brussels. Her status as an MEP could not be worth anything.
On the contrary, perhaps...
A measure taken in retaliation against the sanctions of the European Union which strike several deputies of the Russian Duma, no doubt. But also surely the desire not to have too embarrassing witnesses at this trial. Note that Rebecca Harms is considered by some ultra Russian sites which have classified her on a blacklist (along with Martin Schulz and a few others), as "pathological Russophobic".
The trial of a Ukrainian soldier
Nadezhda Savchenko is indeed a 31-year-old Ukrainian officer, taken prisoner and accused of having provided information allowing the death of 2 Russian journalists during a mortar fire. A relatively famous woman in Ukraine because she is one of the few helicopter pilots (she flies Mi24s). But everything in his file is messy. On the one hand, the Russian commission of inquiry maintains that she entered Russia voluntarily, under the status of refugee. And that's when she would have been arrested. The Ukrainian government and the young woman's lawyers argue the opposite. She was reportedly arrested in Ukrainian territory on June 17, while serving in the Aydar battalion as a volunteer, near the village of Metalist in the province of Luhansk. Another soldier, taken prisoner at the same time as her, bears witness to this. Then the accusations do not match the facts. According to the analysis of her mobile phone by her lawyers, she was not where the prosecution says she was. (read his file on the website of the NGO Open Dialog which supports it).
(*) UPDATE - Fri. Sept. 26 - The High Representative, through her spokesperson, condemned this refoulement on Friday. " We condemn the refusal, at a Moscow airport, to allow MEP Rebecca Harms to enter the territory of the Russian Federation, despite her having checked with the Russian authorities before traveling “said his spokesperson. " A lack of transparency by the Russian authorities with regard to blacklisted persons is regrettable and goes against the spirit of the Visa Facilitation Agreement in place between the EU and Russia”.
(NGV)
