A Ukrainian pilot detained in Russia since 2014 is on her way home following a dramatic prisoner swap with Russia.

Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko flew to Russia on Wednesday morning to bring Nadiya Savchenko home, in exchange for the release of two Russians held by Kiev. Poroshenko is due to address the nation at 3.15pm (12.15 GMT).

Savchenko’s release marks a triumphant moment for Ukraine, where she is viewed as a national hero. It also marks a significant moment of detente between Moscow and Kiev, and a breakthrough in on-off diplomatic negotiations conducted in Minsk.

It comes a few weeks before the European Union decides whether to extend sanctions against Russia, imposed following Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and his covert invasion of eastern Ukraine.

Officials said Poroshenko’s aircraft was en route to the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.

On board his plane were Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov. They both told Reuters in interviews last year they are Russian special forces soldiers who were captured while carrying out a secret operation in the rebel-held Donbas region.

The plan, according to the source quoted by Interfax, was for Poroshenko to deliver the two Russians and pick up Savchenko and take her home.

Savchenko, a military pilot, volunteered to fight with a ground unit against pro-Moscow separatists who launched an insurrection in eastern Ukraine against Kiev’s pro-western government.

She was captured and put on trial in southern Russia, charged with complicity in the deaths of Russian journalists who were killed by artillery while covering the conflict.

A Russian court in March sentenced her to 22 years in jail. While in Russian jail, she was elected a member of the Ukrainian parliament. She is widely seen in Ukraine as a symbol of resistance against Russia.

Her release is also a boost for Poroshenko, whom critics accuse of failing to tackle Ukraine’s endemic corruption or to confront entrenched oligarchic interests. In April Poroshenko, a multi-millionaire businessman, appeared in the Panama Papers in connection with an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

(The Guardian)