Human rights attorneys who represented the Russian rock band Pussy Riot last May arrive in Washington this week to plead with the United States to aid another female detained by Vladimir Putin's Russian Federation.
Attorneys Mark Feygin and Nikolay Polozov represent Nadezhda Savchenko, a 33-year-old pilot from Ukraine who now sits as prisoner in Russian captivity after she was detained during Russian military operations in the war between the two countries.
Russian officials claim she was responsible for providing crucial information for a shelling that led to the death of a Russian TV news crew. However, her attorneys and media reports have said that cellphone tower records prove she was nowhere near the location at the time of the incident.
Following the incident, pro-Russian forces released a video of Savchenko being kidnapped and trafficked across the border to Russia where she remains detained today.
Feygin, Polozov, and other leaders from the human rights community intend to meet this week with personnel at the State Department and the United Nations, as well as with U.S. Ambassador Samantha Powers and members of Congress in an effort to get Savchenko declared a Prisoner of War so that she may have rights set forth under the Geneva Convention.
Article 2 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 states that "the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them. The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance."
By the Geneva Convention's standards, the conflict's definition applies to Ukraine and thereby the Savchenko case.
The legal team seeks to initiate a congressional resolution to declare Savchenko's status as a POW on the premise that the turmoil in Eastern Ukraine is, in fact, an international conflict and that Russia is a participating party.
If rights were granted, Savchenko and other political prisoners from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine would be granted visitation and treatment from impartial humanitarian organizations such as the International Red Cross, due process through the court systems, and right to humane treatment.
While the U.S. Embassy in Moscow called for the release of Savchenko in July, the United States has signaled it does not otherwise wish to engage militarily in Ukraine.
However, the United States is well within its right to adhere to another article of the Geneva Conventions, article 11, which states, "Protecting Powers shall lend their good offices with a view to settling the disagreement."
According to sources close to the talks, U.S. diplomats are at least open to discussion this week pertaining to how the United States expects hostages, especially female prisoners, to be treated.