[7] During the 2014 War in Donbas, Savchenko was a first lieutenant in the Ukrainian Ground Forces and served as instructor with a volunteer infantry unit, the Aidar Battalion.

[9] She was subsequently charged and convicted of murder and illegally crossing the Russian state border,[10][11][12] despite being abducted from Ukrainian territory one hour before the deaths of the journalists.

[17][10][18] On 25 May 2016, Savchencko was exchanged in a prisoner swap for Russian GRU officers[19] Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov captured by Ukraine.

Upon returning to Ukraine, she successfully petitioned the Defence Ministry for the right to attend the prestigious Air Force University in Kharkiv, which until then had been open only to men; she was expelled twice during her study there as an unsuitable candidate to train as a pilot but both times was successfully re-instated and continued to train as a flight navigator instead, initially as a SU-24 navigator.

In 2009, she graduated on a Mi-24 attack helicopter and served in the 3rd Regiment of the Army Aviation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the city of Brody.

[7] Savchenko kept a low profile during the protests; there is a video of her trying to persuade demonstrators not to throw petrol bombs at riot police.

[7] Angry over her unit not being deployed in the war in Donbas, Savchenko defied orders and left Brody, and she volunteered as an instructor in the Aidar Battalion.

[11][12] On 17 June 2014, at 10:46 am she was captured near the village of Metalist, Slovianoserbsk Raion, by members of the Zarya Battalion, an armed pro-Russian militant group that declared allegiance to the self-declared People's Republic of Luhansk.

On 9 July, Vladimir Markin, spokesman for Russia's Investigative Committee (a federal agency subordinate to the Russian President), confirmed that Savchenko was indeed being held in Voronezh where she was facing charges of complicity in the 17 June killing of two Russian journalists, Igor Kornelyuk (a correspondent for All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company), and sound producer Anton Voloshin, who died during a mortar attack on a rebel checkpoint outside Luhansk.

[41] Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a strong protest against the illegal transfer of Savchenko to Russia, calling the kidnapping of the Ukrainian citizen an act of state terrorism.

[42] On 8 July, President Petro Poroshenko instructed the General Prosecutor of Ukraine to take all measures to bring about Savchenko's release.

[43] In response, Vladimir Markin at Russia's Investigative Committee claimed that Savchenko was a terrorist and that the chances of her being released were on a par with those of Petro Poroshenko replacing Barack Obama as President of the United States.

[9] On 10 July, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said in a website statement that her detention and trial is "A violation of all international agreements, all norms of law and is unacceptable.

[49] On 22 December 2014, Moscow City Court upheld the decision to extend the arrest of Savchenko until the end of the investigation, which was scheduled to be concluded by 13 February 2015.

Aleksey Pushkov of the Russian Duma stated that her appointment to PACE was an attack against Russia, and that gaining diplomatic immunity does not absolve one from previous crimes.

[5] On 24 July 2015, a spokesman for the Investigative Committee of Russia, contrary to the information of Savchenko's capture published earlier by Donetsk People's Republic,[8] stated that she voluntarily crossed the Russian border with intention of committing acts of sabotage and freely moved on the territory of Voronezh Oblast until 30 June when she was arrested.

[59] On 7 March 2016, US Secretary of State John Kerry protested Savchenko's continued detention, specifically mentioning concerns about her interrogations, solitary confinement, and forced "psychiatric evaluation".

[65] Immediately in the Boryspil International Airport she was awarded the Golden Star and received an honorary title of Hero of Ukraine.

[66][16][67][68][69] After news of her arrest was reported on 19 June, Savchenko became the subject of an impassioned Ukrainian social media campaign portraying her as a national hero.

[70] The Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda said that Savchenko is known as a "killing machine in a skirt", and Tvoy Den called her "Satan's daughter".

[70] In March 2016, Russian composer Vladimir Nazarov wrote in an open letter to Putin saying that "not even in my worst nightmare could I have imagined that I would have to ask you not to kill a woman.

[72] When Savchencko was released from Russian prison in May 2016, opinion polls for the Ukrainian presidential election showed 15% would vote for her; by early 2017, this number was below 5%.

[91] On 15 March 2018, the Attorney General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko charged Savchenko with preparing a terrorist attack on the Ukrainian parliament.

[95] Savchenko said she did not plan any terrorist attack, but instead talked with undercover Ukrainian government agent provocateurs who sought to discredit her.