Ukrainians grill alleged Russian officer

The defense has repeatedly insisted that the case must be heard in Moscow, he said.

But Russian Federation says she crossed the border illegally, posing as a refugee, before being detained.

When Ukraine captured two Russian soldiers in May, Russia said the two men had quit their special forces unit to go to Ukraine of their own volition.

The trial started with a closed preliminary hearing at the Donetsk city court, with a heavy police presence in the town of about 50,000 people.

ReutersA man takes a picture of Ukrainian military pilot Nadezhda Savchenko as she is seen during a video link on a screen installed inside a court building during a hearing in Moscow, Russia, July 1, 2015.

Russian-backed rebels attacked Ukrainian army positions and civilian areas more than 80 times on Monday night and in the early hours of Tuesday morning, according to the Facebook page of the Ukrainian anti-terrorist operation group ATO.

The measures are meant to compel Russia to comply with peacekeeping commitments signed this year in Minsk that would end fighting in eastern Ukraine, in which pro-Russian separatists are battling Ukrainian forces.

Ilya Novikov, another of Savchenko’s lawyers, said that Russia’s first deputy foreign minister was among them.

Ukraine is also trying to reach a deal with its main creditors on restructuring its debts.

The U.S. and the European Union’s relationship with Russian Federation soured last year after Russian Federation annexed Crimea and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was removed from office.

To save face, political scientist Piontkovsky said Russian authorities likely would wait until Savchenko has been found guilty and sentenced.

Savchenko has become a cause célèbre in Ukraine.

Though a fragile ceasefire seems to be holding, more than 6,500 people have been killed in the conflict in Ukraine’s industrialized Russian-speaking east.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called Friday’s constitutional court ruling “an important step that moves us closer to momentous changes for the state”.

Moscow is prosecuting Savchenko despite diplomatic immunity she enjoys as a lawmaker and a member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Russia’s presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has not commented on a possible prisoner swap.