Russian court says Ukrainian pilot Savchenko killed reporters

A Russian judge on Monday said Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko was complicit in the killing of two Russian journalists, an assertion certain to inflame already dire relations between Moscow and Kiev.

Savchenko, 34, was captured by pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine in June 2014 during the separatist conflict there and handed over to Russia where she was charged with directing mortar fire which killed two Russian journalists.

She has denied wrongdoing. Savchenko is regarded as a national hero and symbol of anti-Kremlin defiance by many in her native Ukraine. In Russia, state TV has depicted her as a dangerous Ukrainian nationalist with the blood of civilians on her hands.

The judge, Leonid Stepanenko, told a courtroom in southern Russia that the panel of judges had established that Savchenko had "deliberately inflicted death on two persons, acting by prior conspiracy, and on the motives of hatred and enmity."

Russian news agencies reported that his words amounted to a formal guilty verdict. However, the judge was still reading his conclusions and the final verdict had not yet been handed down. Savchenko's lawyers, Mark Feygin and Nikolai Polozov, told Reuters they expected the final verdict would come later on Monday or even on Tuesday.

Prosecutors have asked the court to sentence her to 23 years in prison. Savchenko hopes she will be returned to Ukraine before too long as part of an exchange deal between Moscow and Kiev and has been on hunger strike to try to speed up the trial and its outcome.