You're reading: Russian court prepares to find Savchenko guilty of murder

A judge in a Russian court in Donetsk, Rostov Oblast, started summing up the case against Nadiya Savchenko on March 21, with the Ukrainian pilot widely expected to be found guilty of complicity in the murder of two Russian journalists in Ukraine.

A guilty verdict has frequently been predicted by the Ukrainian pilot’s defense team.

“Savchenko will be found guilty, and be given a long sentence,” her lawyer Mark Feygin wrote on Twitter early on March 21, ahead of the start of court proceedings. “But she will be home soon. Support her in today’s demonstrations.”

Earlier Feygin said that after the verdict Savchenko could be exchanged for two Russian intelligence officers who were captured in the war zone in eastern Ukraine.

Savchenko is expected to be given a 23-year jail sentence, as Russian prosecutors have demanded. The process of issuing the verdict against Savchenko and sentencing her is to take two days, and although a formal guilty verdict is yet to be pronounced, the judge’s mumbled summing up had news agencies jumping the gun to report that Savchenko had already been found guilty.

Savchenko was volunteering with the Ukraine’s Aidar Battalion when she was captured by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in the summer of 2014. Video of her in separatist captivity soon emerged, and shortly after that the Russian authorities said they had detained her in Russia.

Savchenko was also charged with crossing the Ukrainian-Russian border illegally.

Savchenko denies all the charges and has mocked the judge and trial process throughout. She claims her captors in Ukraine “sold” her to the Russian authorities in exchange for arms and equipment.

The Ukrainian pilot’s trial has been widely condemned internationally, with frequent calls coming from Western officials and politicians for her release under the Minsk II agreement, which stipulates the release of hostages by both sides. Western leaders have also described her trial as a sham.

However, Russia has refused to release Savchenko, who is an elected Ukrainian member of parliament and a member of Ukraine’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Savchenko has been on several hunger strikes since her capture by the Russian authorities, most recently one without water, which she ended on March 10.