On Monday, a Russian court began reading its verdict for Ukranian helicopter navigator Nadezhda Savchenko who is charged with complicity to murder two Russian state journalists in Eastern Ukraine in 2014.
ABC News reported that Washington and the European Union demanded her immediate release and denounce the trial as a politically motivated sham while prosecutors are pressing a 23-year jail term for Savchenko. The 34-year-old helicopter pilot said she was abducted by pro-Russian fighters before the journalists were killed, and then transferred to Russia.
Ukraine and its allies in the west see the trial as part of Russia's aggression against its former Soviet neighbor that saw Moscow seize the Crimea peninsula and ignited a separatist insurgency in the eastern part of Ukraine. The government of Ukraine is doing everything it can to push for a prisoner swap.
According to CP24, the judge quoted arguments made by the prosecutors who stated that Savchenko called in the coordinates for shelling that killed the several civilians, including the two state journalists on June 2014. The judge also quoted them saying she was driven by "political hatred" toward residents of Ukraine's Luhansk region.
Mark Feigin, Savchenko's defense attorney, said that the Ukrainian pilot is determined to stop drinking water in 10 days and go on hunger strike unless she is extradited to Ukraine. Reports suggest that Moscow would probably agree to exchange her for two captured Russians in eastern Ukraine. However, Russian officials emphasized that they would not even talk about a possible prisoner exchange, not unless the verdict is already in.
Savchenko has become a national hero in Ukraine since she was arrested and has been elected to parliament in absentia, reports The National. Video recordings from the courtroom showed a calm and relaxed Savchenko chatting with her lawyers from inside the glass-fronted defendant's cage as the judge read out the ruling.
The reading of the Savchenko's verdict is set to last through Tuesday.
