Ukrainian war hero detained for maybe trying to start a coup

Nadiya Savchenko's worn a lot of hats (including furry ones) over the past few years. She was military pilot in the Ukraine Air Force and a training officer for a volunteer Ukrainian infantry unit during the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea. Captured by enemy forces in the early days of that conflict, she became an illegal detainee and eventually a prisoner of war. After being set free as part of a prisoner swap agreement set up between Russia and Ukraine, she became a war hero and was awarded the Star of the Hero of Ukraine. Soon after, she left the military behind to join the Ukraine government as a lawmaker.

Now, according to Reuters, she's been detained by the country that she served so honorably over allegations that she may have been planning a coup. Savchenko, who's been pretty vocal about her displeasure with corruption in the current Ukraine government, hasn't denied the charges being leveled against her.

During a session of the Ukraine parliament earlier this week, she was detained after her governmental colleagues voted to remove her parliamentary immunity to prosecution. The vote came in light of some pretty damning evidence that suggests that she was planning a violent overthrown of the country's government, including undercover video footage of her trying to persuade Ukrainian military personnel to join her cause. Instead of responding to the allegations, Savchenko accused the Ukraine government of betraying the spirit and ideals of Ukraine's 2013/2014 pro-western European uprising:

If the status quo remains unchanged, then the danger in parliament wont be me, your danger will be your people, she said.

To accuse me of treason against Ukraine ... and to make anti-heroes out of yesterdays heroes simply because they do not agree with the policies and positions of the current government, thats all the authorities can do, she said.

Image: Authorized Ukrainian TV channel Inter Youtube stream - Podrobytsi (Details) News Programming. 25.01.2015, at 57:07/2:07:13 (Creative Commons Attribution), CC BY 3.0, Link