Russia will continue to expand its territories to the border with Poland or even Germany if it is not stopped in its current conflict with Ukraine, the captured pilot turned politician Nadia Savchenko has warned.
Speaking in her first foreign media interview since being freed from a Russian jail in a prisoner exchange, Ms Savchenko called on Western nations to do more to help Ukraine and “show Russia they will stop its imprudence and appetite sooner or later”.
Ms Savchenko, 35, was her country’s first female attack helicopter pilot and became a cause-celebre when she was captured by pro-Russian rebels in June 2014. She was elected a member of the Ukrainian parliament from her jail cell.
She told The Telegraph she understood the West had to be “very careful” in how it approached Ukraine, adding “nobody wants a Third World War”.
“It might be uncomfortable for Europe or even America for some time,” she said. “But they need to understand that if they don’t stop Russia on the border of Ukraine, next time it will be on the border with Poland or the border with Germany.”
Her comments came after officials from Ukraine and Georgia, which fought a war with Russia in 2008, urged Nato members to consider bringing them into the alliance.
Hanna Hopko, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Ukrainian Parliament said that NATO membership would bring security guarantees to her war-scarred country that has already lost more than 9,300 people in the conflict.
"I ask you to think carefully about the real strategy (of) how to protect Ukrainian society from Russian aggression," Hopko said.
Ms Savchenko also cited “Nato support” as one of the ways the West can help Ukraine “using existing tools”.
But unlike the mainstream leadership of her country, she said she was willing to open up talks with the leaders of the separatist movements in Donetsk and Luhansk.
“I won’t speak as a politician, I speak as a human being,” she said. “People want peace - but we’ll never have peace unless we start talking about it. Before we Ukrainians start talking about what is happening in our occupied territories, we need to remove the neighbours. So let's get Russia out of the way first, and then we can talk.”
