Peskov: It is nonsense that the arrested MP is a Russian intelligence officer

The idea that the deputy speaker of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada, Nadezhda Savchenko, was recruited by the Russian intelligence services while she was in prison in Russia "is pure nonsense," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"That was probably proposed by the British, they like such theories. Of course, it's pure nonsense. Savchenko is a matter of Ukraine's internal affairs," Peskov said in an interview with Russian television.

He wondered if the European leaders would issue a statement asking Kiev to release Savchenko, reports TAS S.

On March 15 of this year, the State Prosecutor of Ukraine Yury Lutsenko submitted a document to the Ukrainian parliament in which Savchenko was accused of a number of criminal acts, including a terrorist attack during a parliamentary session, Tanjug reminds.

A week later, Ukrainian MPs decided to revoke Savchenko's parliamentary immunity and voted to initiate proceedings against her.

Soon after that, Savchenko found herself in pre-trial detention. She started a hunger strike on Friday.

In June 2014, Savchenkova was arrested in Russia, where she was later sentenced to 22 years in prison for complicity in the murder of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine. She spent almost two years in prison in Russia, until the President of Russia Vladimir Putin pardoned her on May 25, 2016.

After that, she returned to Ukraine where she continued her active political career as a Ukrainian MP, according to TAS S.

Ukrainian authorities turned their backs on her after she traveled on her own to the self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, where she spoke with the leadership of those self-proclaimed republics.