Preliminary Hearing Into Savchenko's Case Resumes In Russia
A Russian court has resumed the preliminary hearing into the high-profile case against Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko, charged with providing information that led to the deaths of two Russian journalists.
The hearing in the town of Donetsk in the Rostov region is being held behind closed doors.
Russian officials say Savchenko, who served in a volunteer battalion in eastern Ukraine where Ukrainian forces are fighting Russian-backed separatists, provided the coordinates for a mortar attack that killed the journalists last summer.
Savchenko strongly denies the charges and says she was captured by rebels in Ukraine and smuggled into Russia. She had gone on a hunger strike to protest her detention.
International rights groups and many Western governments have called for Savchenko to be released.
Last month, the Rostov regional court rejected a defense request to move Savchenko's trial to Moscow.
Based on reporting by rapsinews.ru and Interfax
An excerpt:
Support for Ukraine should not be seen as foreign assistance to a striving economic reformer, though it is that. Rather, with Ukraine invaded, support should be seen as investment in forward defense of core U.S. and European security interests. If Ukraine succeeds economically, investments will pay for themselves several times over as loans are paid back with interest, and as Russia’s government is both deterred by Ukraine’s stronger economy and pressured by its economic example.
Historians will wonder why the international community has invested more than 10 times as much money in supporting a recalcitrant Greece as in supporting a reforming Ukraine, since the start of their crisis. Perhaps intra-European Union loans are in some special category, but as of this moment the IMF’s potential exposure to Greece is $41 billion compared to only $22 billion for Ukraine.
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Three Weeks With The Donbas Battalion
This ends our live blogging for September 14. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.