Savchenko trial: Russian court gives verdict on Ukraine pilot
A Russian judge has begun reading the verdict on Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko, accused of helping kill two Russian journalists.
She is accused of directing the artillery fire in which the two journalists died.
It was initially thought the judge had found her guilty, but journalists say a final verdict has not yet been delivered.
Ukraine and some Western countries have condemned the case as a show trial.
The two Russian state TV journalists Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin were killed in mortar fire in June 2014, at the height of fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels.
On the same day, Ms Savchenko, 34, was captured by rebels.
Ms Savchenko, a pilot by training, is accused of having acted as an artillery spotter on the ground.
She denies the charges. Her lawyer has argued phone records prove she was captured by rebels before the attack.
Ms Savchenko had arrived in the area a few days previously to join the volunteer Aidar battalion, loyal to the Ukrainian government.
According to her lawyers, she was captured by rebel militants on the morning of 17 June whilst trying to reach several Aidar fighters who had been wounded in an ambush.
Ms Savchenko says her captors then took her into Russia, but prosecutors say she secretly crossed into Russian territory herself.
Reading the verdict, the judge in the Russian town of Donetsk quoted prosecutors as saying Ms Savchenko had been driven by "political hatred".
The prosecution has called for Ms Savchenko - who was elected as a Ukrainian MP in her absence following her capture - to be jailed for 23 years.
Any sentence will be delivered by the court on Tuesday, after an eventual verdict has been handed down.
AFP
Earlier, one of her lawyers said there was "no doubt" that the court would find Ms Savchenko guilty and sentence her to a "few dozen years".
"A propaganda machine is at work here, absent of justice and freedom," said Mark Feigin on Twitter.
Western politicians have called for her release.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has said she should be freed "immediately and unconditionally" while the US envoy to the UN, Samantha Power, described the trial as "farcical".
Relations between Russia and Ukraine - along with its Western allies - have deteriorated since the events of 2014 in Ukraine.
Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula that March after an unrecognised referendum on self-determination, and is accused of covertly supporting the rebels in the bloody conflict which later divided eastern Ukraine.
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