[Curnow:] Well, after almost two years in a Russian prison, a Ukrainian pilot is back home. Nadiya Savchenko has long maintained her innocence and critics have called her trial a sham. She was released in a prisoner swap with Moscow. Our Matthew Chance is in the Russian capital. He joins us now. She's just been awarded a commendation. She's made comments a hero, a hero's welcome.
[Matthew Chance, Cnn Senior International Correspondent:] That's right. She got something of a hero's welcome when she flew back into the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, within the last couple of hours on a presidential aircraft. She was greeted by crowds of media, crowds of supporters as well, she's had a joint press conference with President Poroshenko of Ukraine as well. And she got off that airplane after two years almost in captivity, behind bars in Russia, and she was still very defiant, even very angry, when she made her comments, her address, to the crowd that was waiting for her at the airport. Take a listen to some of the stuff she had to say.
[Nadiya Savchenko, Ukrainian Pilot:] The first thing I want to say is I am free. I would like to apologize to all mothers whose children could not come back.
[Savchenko:] But I am still alive. I would also like to apologize to those mothers whose children are detained. But I am free.
[Chance:] Well, there is Savchenko there, sort of basking, if you like, in her heroine status that she's acquired since she was captured by pro- Russian forces in Eastern Ukraine, is actually she was captured inside Russia and was accused of illegally crossing into Russia from Eastern Ukraine. She was convicted in a Russian court of directing the mortar fire back in June 2014 that killed, among other people, two Russian state television journalists. Vladimir Putin, who is the Russian president, of course, has said that he only agreed to issue the pardon for Nadiya Savchenko after he had consulted with the widows of those two Russian journalists and that they had personally appealed to him to set her free. He also said that he hoped that her pardoning and the prisoner swap deal would do something to ease the tensions in the conflict zone as well. And so Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, saying, look, I only did this for the family members of the Russian journalists who were killed Robyn.
[Curnow:] Will this ease tensions?
[Chance:] It's unlikely to go very far in that regard, to be honest, although it closes a very difficult and acrimonious chapter in relations between Russia and Ukraine. Nadiya Savchenko has become something of a cause celebre here in Russia. Many foreign leaders as well as the Ukrainians, of course, have strongly criticized her trial as politically motivated. At the same time, there were a couple of Russian citizens who had been held and tried and convicted inside Ukraine as well, sentenced to 14 years in prison for terrorism, on terrorism charges. They confessed when they were in custody of being members of Russia's special forces, although Russia of course denies sending any of its troops to Ukraine. And so as part of the prisoner swap, Russia gets back those Russian citizens as well, which, again, is it goes some way towards decreasing the tensions between the two countries.
[Curnow:] In Moscow, thanks so much, Matthew Chance there. Still ahead, this climber said reaching the top of Mt. Everest would prove that vegans aren't weak. Now her family is mourning her loss. We'll speak to Marisa Strydom's mother that's next.