Hunger-striking Ukrainian military navigator Nadiya Savchenko, accused of involvement in the killing of two Russian journalists in war-torn Ukraine, delivers her final statement to the court in the southern Russian town of Donetsk on March 9. (Sergei Venyavsky/AFP/Getty Images)

— A Ukrainian military helicopter navigator on trial in Russia vowed Wednesday to starve herself to death unless she is returned home, saying that she had been abducted by “Kremlin puppets,” in a case that has drawn international condemnation.

Lt. Nadiya Savchenko, 34, stands accused by Russian prosecutors of complicity in the 2014 deaths of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine. She has long maintained her innocence and said she will continue a five-day-old hunger strike until she is returned to Ukraine.

A judge in the southern Russian town of Donetsk said that the verdict in the case would be announced on March 21 and 22. It was initially expected Wednesday, and Savchenko said that she may be dead before the verdict comes. The Ukrainian has previously engaged in long hunger strikes; this time she is also refusing water.

Prosecutors last week asked a judge to sentence Savchenko to 23 years in prison for her alleged role in directing a June 2014 mortar attack in eastern Ukraine that killed two Russian journalists. At the time, she was helping train a Ukrainian volunteer militia. She says she had already been captured by pro-Russian rebels before the attack.

[Female Ukrainian war hero facing 25 years in Russian jail]

Russian trials are usually perfunctory and almost always rule against the defendant. Savchenko’s has been drawn out since July, giving authorities here a chance to publicize what they have trumpeted as Ukrainian war crimes against civilians. Savchenko, meanwhile, has become a national hero in Ukraine, and she was elected to parliament in late 2014 even as she sat in a Russian prison awaiting trial.

The court proceedings are the highest-profile in Russia since members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot were convicted of hooliganism in 2012 for a brief performance in a Moscow church in which they protested Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There are no legitimate criminal investigations or courts in Russia,” Savchenko said in court Wednesday, reading in Ukrainian from a prepared statement. “There is only a farce of Kremlin puppets.” She sang the Ukrainian national anthem, and the courtroom was briefly cleared when other protesters joined in. She ended her statement with a middle finger directed toward the judge

Her attorneys say telephone records show that she had ­already been captured by pro-Russian rebels at the time of the attack. She says she was spirited across the border to Russia, tortured and charged with the crime. Russian authorities say she was caught on Russian soil after sneaking across disguised as a refugee, an allegation she dismisses as ridiculous. She has been held by Russia since July 2014.

[Defiant Nadiya Savchenko, a captured Ukrainian, inspires her country]

After Wednesday’s proceedings, the court refused requests for Savchenko to be able to see her mother, sister, Ukrainian doctors and Ukrainian diplomats in the coming days as she awaits her verdict. She will be allowed to see only her attorneys.

“I’m so nervous, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to sleep,” Savchenko’s mother, Mariya Savchenko, 78, said in a video statement released over the weekend. She said she believed her daughter had only five or six days left to live.

One of Savchenko’s attorneys, Mark Feygin, who also defended Pussy Riot, told reporters outside the courthouse that he hopes that, if convicted, she will be allowed to serve her sentence in Ukraine.

That would allow Russia “to get out from this case with dignity,” he said.

Another attorney, Nikolai Polozov, said Wednesday that Savchenko had a fever of about 100.4 degrees and that she was suffering from tachycardia, a form of extreme racing of the heart, as a result of her hunger strike.

Vice President Biden on Tuesday called on Russia to release Savchenko, saying in a statement that “we call on Russia to make the right choice — to drop all charges and release her at once.” European lawmakers have called for additional sanctions against Russia because of the case.

But the Kremlin and the Russian Foreign Ministry have swung hard against the international condemnations of the case, saying they were an illegitimate attempt to sway the process of Russian courts.

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