Ukrainian Pilot Goes on Trial in Russian Federation

When asked by a reporter how Ukraine pays for Russian gas, she answered, “negotiations are in progress,” RIA Novosti reports.

Recently a Ukrainian filmmaker, Oleg Sentsov, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Russian Federation on terror charges. Western governments and human rights groups have condemned Savchenko’s detention, which has lasted more than a year, and called for her release.

According to Orlov, in the 1990s and 2000s, relations between Moscow and Kiev were better and deferrals were agreed, but it would be wrong to extrapolate that situation to the present one.

The trial was being held in the small southern Russian town of Donetsk, which has the same name as the Ukrainian city that is the main rebel stronghold.

Savchenko has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to Russian presence in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists launched a rebellion in April 2014 against the Kyiv government.

Securing debt relief is required under a $17.5 billion global Monetary Fund loan granted to help Ukraine recover after a conflict with pro-Russian separatists in its easternmost regions sent the economy into a tailspin and drained reserves.

In court, Nadiya Savchenko pleaded not guilty and, according to Russian state media, said, “The whole case is a lie from the beginning to the end”.

Riot police armed with machine guns stood outside the court as snipers watched on from the roof of a nearby apartment block.

Savchenko denies the charges, and spent more than 80 days on a hunger strike to protest her detention.

“Nadia Savchenko has prepared herself for any sentence”, one of her lawyers, Mark Feigin, told journalists.

Most of the public seats in the court were occupied by Cossack militiamen, correspondents say, with the press only allowed to monitor proceedings by a video-link from an adjoining room. They also claim she did not cross the border voluntarily but was kidnapped.

Three representatives from the European Union, a Ukrainian consul based in Rostov-on-the-Don, and Savchenko’s sister Vira, who has actively campaigned for her release, were among those who attended the hearing.

Past year she was elected in absentia to Ukraine’s parliament.