DONETSK, Russia (AP) – A Russian court has found Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko guilty of complicity to murder two Russian journalists in war-torn eastern Ukraine.
The judge who began reading the verdict on Monday said in his opening that Savchenko, who served in a volunteer Ukrainian battalion at the time, called in the coordinates for shelling that killed the two journalists and several civilians in July 2014, and that she was driven by “political hatred.”
Prosecutors had asked for a 23-year prison sentence for Savchenko. The sentencing in the case is expected later.
The Savchenko case has attracted strong criticism from the West and is an open wound for Ukraine, which says she was captured by Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine and turned over to Russia, and therefore should be treated as a prisoner of war.