What happened to Savchenko's immunity in March 2018?

What was the political picture in Kyiv and its neighbourhood on 26 March 2018? The days leading up to that date were dominated by the arrest of a sitting member of parliament, while Warsaw's quarrels with Brussels continued in parallel.

An arrest inside parliament

On 22 March 2018, the Verkhovna Rada gave its consent to lifting the parliamentary immunity of MP Nadiya Savchenko and to her detention and arrest. Investigators from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) then detained her inside the parliament building itself.

The arrest was linked to an alleged plot to attack parliament and overthrow the government. As reported at the time, it was a rapid sequence: the vote on immunity and the detention took place on the same day.

Poland and Brussels

Beyond Ukraine's borders, Poland was in a dispute with the European Union. On 21 March 2018, Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz accused the EU of "double standards" and of suffering "a deficit of democracy". Poland and the European Commission were at odds over migrant quotas and over proposed reform of Poland's judiciary.

The next day, 22 March 2018, Poland's ruling Law and Justice party proposed changes to its planned judicial reforms in response to EU criticism that the plans threatened judicial independence. The European Commission was threatening Poland with sanctions over the reforms.

A delayed missile defence project

Also on 22 March 2018, Polish and US authorities said that completion of the United States missile defence complex in Poland, part of a NATO project, would be delayed until 2020.

The picture on 26 March 2018

Taken together, these developments framed the start of the week of 26 March 2018: a high-profile detention in Kyiv, a Polish government trying to adjust judicial plans under pressure from the European Commission, and a NATO-linked defence project in Poland with a later completion date.