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Preliminary hearing for Ukrainian pilot Savchenko begins in Russia

The preliminary hearing for the 34-year-old was being held in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, close to the Ukrainian border.

By Jared M. Feldschreiber

ROSTOV-ON-DON , Russia, July 30 (UPI) -- Nadiya Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot accused of involvement in the killing of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine, appeared in court in southern Russia Thursday. The pre-trial hearing for the 34-year-old is being held close to the volatile Ukrainian border.

Savchenko was initially charged with being an accessory to murder but the charges have since been upgraded to "joint perpetrator of murder." Charges against her now carry a 25-year prison term, according to the Russian courts, BBC News reported. Russian investigators allege that Savchenko was working as a spotter in eastern Ukraine that provided the coordinates for a mortar attack, which killed the two Russian journalists.

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Savchenko -- a symbol of the resistance to Russia's incursion in eastern Ukraine -- was captured during fighting with separatists. Earlier this year, Savchenko spent 83 days on a hunger strike to protest her detention while continuing to deny all charges.

The United States is urging the Russian authorities to stop court proceedings against Savchenko, the U.S. embassy in Moscow said.

"We are urging Russia to stop this groundless court proceeding and to release Nadiya Savchenko and all other Ukrainian citizens being held hostage immediately," press attache of the U.S. embassy in Russia Will Stevens told Interfax. "We would like to confirm its stance that there should be no trial at all over Savchenko," he said.

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The Open Dialog Foundation, a human rights organization based in Poland, was one of the first non-governmental organizations to advocate for immediate release.

"This [trial] is an attempt to isolate Savchenko; she is a symbol," Lyudmyla Kozlovska, president of Open Dialog Foundation, told UPI on Thursday. "She is a symbol as an activist of Euromaidan. For Putin, nowadays, it's very important symbolically to show that he is strong. He uses... such cases as Savchenko as a main tool in propaganda."

Savchenko's defense team has said it will request that the trial itself be moved to Moscow so it is away from the Rostov region near Ukraine that is close to the ongoing conflict. Her lawyers told BBC News that a guilty verdict is a foregone conclusion as the court follows political orders.

Russian authorities maintain that Savchenko crossed the border illegally and posed as a refugee before being detained, BBC News reported.

Kozlovska, however, added that Putin's imprints are all over the trial.

The trial "will be very sensitive and affective. It touches not only [with] politicians and servants but also all [of the] prosecutors and judges [to whom]... implement the political orders of Putin," Kozlovksa told UPI.

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Thursday's preliminary hearing was held behind the closed doors.

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