MOSCOW, May 4 (RAPSI) – The Russian Penitentiary Service is going to proceed with transfer of Ukrainian national Nadezhda Savchenko to her homeland only under the condition that Ukraine takes an obligation of upholding her sentence, RIA Novosti news agency reports on Wednesday.

Earlier, Savchenko’s lawyer Nikolai Polozov has said that his client may resume her hunger strike if there are any delays with regard to Savchenko’s transfer to Ukraine. According to Polozov, Ukraine is obliged to recognize the Russian court’s ruling but does not have to enforce it.

In late April Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko expressed his “firm hope” that the matter of Savchenko’s return would be solved in several weeks.

Ukrainian retired officer Nadezhda Savchenko was sentenced to 22 years in prison for involvement in the murder of two Russian journalists and illegal border crossing. A court in Donetsk, a town in southern Russia, has established that Savchenko was responsible for conducting concealed observation and directing mortar fire in an attack against a roadblock held by militias of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic and a group of civilians there, including three Russian journalists, near the village of Metallist, the Lugansk Region, on June 17, 2014. The attack killed Two Russian television journalists, Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin.