The Donetsk City Court of Rostov region has convicted Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko, who is charged with killing Russian journalists in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, an Interfax correspondent has reported.

"Nadia Viktorivna Savchenko committed the killing of Kornelyuk and Voloshin by a group of persons by previous concert for hatred and enmity motives," Leonid Stepanenko, the chairman of the collegium of judges, said.

Stepanenko said Savchenko also illegally crossed the Russian border.

The court found that Savchenko secretly entered the area where LPR militant positions were located in the area of the village of Stukalova Balka on June 17, 2014. The court believes Savchenko mounted a 40-meter high television tower and began watching a former traffic police post, which was located 2.6 km from her.

The court collegium decided that the Ukrainian citizen had found in that territory six civilians and three Russian journalists and provided that information to Serhiy Melnychuk, commander of the battalion Aidar (a separate case has been opened on the basis of that), who made a decision to open fire on that territory using D-30 howitzers. In accordance with the document, fire was opened from a distance of not more than ten kilometers.

Savchenko coordinated artillery fire during the attack, the sentence states.

During the presentation of arguments, the state prosecutors asked the court to sentence Savchenko to 23 years in prison. The state prosecutors believed the evidence presented by the prosecutors was logical, confirmed by the case materials and sufficient to find the culprit guilty.

According to Russian investigators, Ukrainian Armed Forces officer Nadia Savchenko was at a base of the Aidar battalion near the town of Metalist, Slovianoserbsk district, Luhansk region on June 17, 2014. She was conducting secret observation and adjustment of artillery fire on a Luhansk militant roadblock where civilians, including three journalists from Russia's VGTRK broadcaster, were present. The shelling killed two Russian journalists, Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin.

The Ukrainian citizen is also charged with the illegal crossing the Russian border from the territory of Luhansk region, which she committed no later than June 23, 2014 in the area of the local checkpoint Donetsk-Pivnichny.

Savchenko and her defense lawyers flatly deny involvement in the said crimes. They said Savchenko had already been captured and was in central Luhansk when the journalists died, which is confirmed by her phone bills and the testimony of an expert, which said that the video of the Ukrainian citizen's detention indicates that it occurred one hour prior to the journalists' death. Savchenko said she was taken to Russia after being held in Luhansk for almost a week and was taken to the building of the regional department of the Investigative Committee for Voronezh region.

Savchenko has been under arrest in Russia since July 2014. She is now in a detention facility in Novocherkassk, which is located some 100km from Donetsk, Rostov region, where the trial has been held. During a court hearing on December 17, 2015, Savchenko declared a hunger strike until the end of her trial. On March 4, 2016, she declared a 'dry' hunger strike. On March 10, she ended her dry hunger strike until the sentencing.