Russia seeks 23 years jail for Ukraine pilot

Russia's state prosecutor on Wednesday demanded a 23-year prison sentence for Ukrainian pilot and lawmaker Nadiya Savchenko who is accused of killing two Russian journalists in war-torn Ukraine.

One of Savchenko's lawyers, Mark Feigin, told AFP the prosecution had also requested she pay a fine of 100,000 rubles ($1,350/1,250 euros).

After more than a year in detention, the aviator was put in the dock last summer in the small southern Russian town of Donetsk, on the border with conflict-torn Ukraine.

The trial is now drawing to a close and Savchenko is expected to make her last address to the court on Thursday.

Two journalists from Russian public broadcaster VGTRK Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin died in shelling on June 17, 2014, in Ukraine's Lugansk region.

Russian prosecutors say Savchenko was involved in the killing in her capacity as a volunteer in a Ukrainian battalion.

Wearing a traditional embroidered Ukrainian shirt, the pilot reiterated her innocence, saying she was a Ukrainian officer and had every right to defend her homeland.

She said the management of the broadcasting company they worked and the Russian authorities should be blamed for their death.

"If they wore helmets and flak jackets, they would have remained alive," she said in remarks provided by her defence teams. 

She also threatened resume a hunger strike refusing both food and water if the judge took more than two weeks to prepare and announce the verdict.