You're reading: Russian court finds Savchenko guilty of complicity in murder

It ended as it had begun and continued throughout: in farce and confusion.

A court in the small Russian border town of Donetsk in Rostov Oblast on March 22 found Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Sevchenko guilty of complicity in the murder of two Russian journalists in Ukraine.

And in an incident typical of her behavior during the trial, Savchenko
broke into a rousing Ukrainian folk song after the guilty verdict was read. The judge
immediately ordered a break in proceedings and cleared the court, with Savchenko’s sentence yet to be handed down.

When proceedings resumed, Savchenko was sentenced to 22 years in prison – prosecutors had demanded 23 years.

The verdict came after nearly two days of mind-numbing boredom, as the judge read through hundreds of pages of prosecution and defense
evidence before pronouncing the court’s verdict.

The guilty verdict had been widely expected. It was
mistakenly reported on March 21, after Russian news agencies prematurely
reported that the verdict had been pronounced, while the judge had in fact only
started summing up the prosecutors’ evidence.

Savchenko was charged with acting as a spotter in an
artillery attack that killed Russian state television journalists Igor
Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin
, who died in a mortar attack on a Russian-back
fighters’ checkpoint outside Luhansk.

The months-long trial has been described as a farce by
Western politicians and human rights groups in Ukraine and abroad. Savchenko’s
defense team has complained that key witnesses were not permitted to testify,
and that evidence they say proves Savchenko’s innocence, including mobile phone
records, was ignored by the court. In particular, they said mobile phone
records for Savchenko and Kornelyuk show that the Ukrainian pilot had been
taken captive an hour before the deaths of the Russian journalists.

Savchenko mocked the trial process throughout, and on the last day of hearings on March 9 cast an insulting single-fingered gesture at the presiding judge.

“You can’t put everyone behind bars – there will be a Maidan (uprising) in Russia,” Savchenko told the court at the time. “(Russian President Vladimir) Putin will not be able to keep his power on the blood of the people. All I can do is show by example that by being fearless and strong the Russian state and its totalitarian regime can be whipped into submission.”

“And now do you want my final statement? This is my final statement! Can you see it?” Savchenko said, leaping onto the bench in the defendant’s cage and gesturing at the judge.

Savchenko was captured in June 2014 in the east of
Ukraine by Russian-backed fighters. Video soon emerged of her in captivity, in
chains and under interrogation. The Russian authorities later announced that
she was in detention in Voronezh, Russia, with the Russian Investigation
Committee claimed that she had been detained when crossing the border into
Russia “without documents and dressed as a refugee.” It later changed its
story, saying Savchenko had roamed freely about Voronezh Oblast with the
intention of carrying out acts of sabotage before being detained on June 30,
2014.

Savchenko denies this, saying that she was first
captured by armed groups in Luhansk Oblast, and then “sold” to the Russian
authorities in exchange for arms and equipment. She said she was taken captive
by the Russian authorities on June 24.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has described the incident
as a case of kidnapping of a Ukrainian citizen and an act of state terrorism.
An official at the Russian Investigation Committee, in response, described
Savchenko as “a terrorist.”

Savchenko has gone on several hungers strikes during her trial,
including one that lasted over a month. And in a procedure reminiscent of old
Soviet show trials, at the end of August 2014 she was forced to undergo a month-long
“psychiatric examination” in an institute in Moscow.

While frequently predicting the guilty verdict, Savchenko’s lawyer Mark
Feygin has said there is a chance that once found guilty and sentenced, the
Ukrainian pilot will be exchanged for two Russian military intelligence
officers who were captured by Ukraine’s armed forces in a firefight in eastern
Ukraine in May 2015.

Earlier, Feygin told journalists that exchanging the two Russian
soldiers for Savchenko would allow the Kremlin to emerge from the Savchenko
trial “with dignity.”

CORRECTION: Savchenko was found guilty of complicity in the murder of two Russian journalists.

Kyiv Post editor Euan MacDonald can
be reached at [email protected]