The Non-Compliance Europe prefers not to see - for those who won’t live to Minsk III

A delegation of entirely anonymous German doctors are reported – by Russia – to have examined Nadiya Savchenko and found her condition “satisfactory”.  There is no word from Germany about this visit, nor any serious statement regarding Moscow’s flagrant non-compliance with the Minsk II agreements in not releasing Savchenko who has now been on hunger strike for 66 days.

The Kremlin indicated that it was flouting the Minsk II agreements within a day of the meeting on Feb 12 by stating clearly that it would not release Nadiya Savchenko.  It left its proxies in Donbas to demonstrate no less brazen non-compliance with other key commitments.  

There have been plenty of expressions of ‘deep concern’ since then, together with calls both for Savchenko’s release, and for compliance with the ceasefire.  There is assiduous avoidance in the second case, however, of indicating just who is in breach of the agreement.  We are told, for example, that the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Serbia’s Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić today strongly urged all sides to refrain from any action that might endanger the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine”.   There is silence altogether from the EU. 

There was, however, news of the EU’s latest sanctions.  The EU Observer even called them a taboo-breaker, with the EU for the very first time referring to “Russian troops in Ukraine”. Honesty much to be welcomed, unlike the pathetic scale of the sanctions.  These have once again mainly targeted the so-called separatists fronting Russia’s undeclared war in Ukraine. 

There will doubtless be more stern words later this week, warnings of the ‘price’ that Russia will pay, probably ‘if’ it does not take measures to de-escalate the situation. 

Perhaps there will even be some price.  Not as high as that paid by the soldiers who will not be alive for Minsk III. 

Nor as high as the price Nadiya Savchenko could pay – and at any time after well over 2 months on hunger strike. 

Russian human rights activist Zoya Svetova visited Savchenko on Sunday evening and passed on to her words from Oleg Sentsov, Ukrainian political prisoner held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison on fabricated ‘terrorism’ charges.  Sentsov says that if anything happens to Nadiya Savchenko, he will go on hunger strike.

Nadiya laughed, replied that “all our Ukrainians will fall here”.  She dismissed the call from the European Court of Human Rights to end her hunger strike.  If she refused her elderly mother and sister, why would she heed the court? 

As reported, the Court in Strasbourg refused to apply Rule 39 of its Interim Measures and call for Savchenko’s release, confining itself instead to a symbolic call for her to start eating again and the message that her appeal lodged back in July 2014 had been given priority status. 

Savchenko was captured by Kremlin-backed militants in Ukraine and taken by force to Russia where successive courts have allowed applications from the ‘investigators’ to hold her in custody despite an unbreakable alibi, her testimony backed by empirical evidence indicating that she was abducted from Ukraine and now her grave physical condition. 

‘Priority status’ in Nadiya Savchenko’s case could prove as meaningless as the expressions of deep concern and calls for a diplomatic solution as soldiers and civilians continue dying under another ‘Minsk ceasefire’ in Donbas.