Prosecutor asks court to sentence Ukrainian aviator Savchenko to 23 years in prison
The prosecutor asked the Donetsk City Court in Russia's Rostov region to sentence Ukrainian aviator Nadia Savchenko to 23 years in a general security penitentiary at a hearing on Wednesday, an Interfax correspondent reported from the courthouse.
The prosecutor also asked the court to fine Savchenko 100,000 rubles. He insisted that the prosecution's case was logical, consistent with the documents, and sufficient to find her guilty.
"Possessing military combat skills, the defendant joined the Aidar battalion, where she criminally colluded with the battalion's commander and its members. She committed criminal deeds using generally dangerous means," he said.
In committing the crime, Savchenko was motivated by hatred and aversion toward residents of the Luhansk region and Russian citizens, the prosecutor said.
According to Russian investigators, Ukrainian Armed Forces officer Savchenko was at the base of the Aidar battalion near the village of Metalist in the Slovyanoserbsk district of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine on June 17, 2014, where she was conducting secret surveillance and correcting artillery fire targeting a checkpoint of militants from the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, as well as civilians sheltering there; among them were three journalists of Russia's VGTRK broadcaster. Two Russian reporters, namely Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin, were killed in the attack.
Savchenko denies all charges. She has been held in custody in Russia since July 2014. Savchenko declared at a hearing at the Donetsk City Court on December 17, 2015 that she would be on a hunger strike until the end of her trial.