A Ukrainian officer charged with the deaths of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine says she was kidnapped by Russians after being captured by separatist rebels.
Russian prosecutors claim Nadezhda Savchenko intentionally targeted journalists and civilians when Ukrainian forces attacked rebel positions in June 2014.
Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot who served in a volunteer battalion, told the court she had been taken prisoner before the mortar attack on civilians and journalists.
After a week of captivity in the rebel-held Luhansk, Savchenko said, she was handed over to unknown men with Russian accents who took her across the border.
Savchenko said the men, who were armed and masked, drove her to a hotel in the city of Voronezh where she was kept for a week before she was formally charged.
"I wasn't able to go out anywhere for a week: I was guarded by masked men," said Savchenko, who was dressed in a traditional Ukrainian embroidered blouse.
Savchenko said she was on a reconnaissance mission several few miles from where the mortar shells landed when she was captured.
Russian prosecutors have denied she was smuggled across the border. Instead, they insist she escaped captivity in Luhansk and made her way into Russia to carry out an act of terror.
The Ukrainian government has campaigned for Savchenko's release, claiming the charges against her are trumped up and that she should be treated as a prisoner of war.
Her trial is being held in the small southern Russian town of Donetsk, which has the same name as the southern Ukrainian city that is the main rebel stronghold.
No comments:
Post a Comment