On the ground, sporadic clashes continue in the east. The West says there is clear evidence of Russian regular troops helping the rebels and arming them with heavy weapons – something Moscow denies.
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“She was abducted by Russian agents and brought to Russia”, he said.
Nadiya Savchenko faces up to 25 years in prison for her alleged involvement in the killing of two Russian journalists.
Savchenko, who is seen by her compatriots as a symbol of resistance against what most Ukrainians consider an insurgency fuelled by President Vladimir Putin’s government, has denied any involvement.
Treasury also identified a number of subsidiaries of Russian state-run bank Vnesheconomnbank and Russian-run oil company Rosneft-both of which the U.S. sanctioned a year ago.
Four civilians have been killed in fresh violence near Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine, with Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists blaming each other for recent shelling in the area.
“I assume this was done to make access to the trial as hard as possible for the press and for global diplomats”, Ilya Nivokov, one of her lawyers, told RFE/RL.
“If it is good for propaganda purposes, then there should have been another suitable person chosen for victimization”, he said.
The Obama administration is imposing additional sanctions on more than two-dozen people or entities to strengthen existing restrictions in connection to Russian actions in Ukraine.
Ukrainian and Western politicians have appealed to Moscow to free Savchenko.
Two civilians were also hurt on territory outside of government control, deputy rebel commander Eduard Basurin said by phone from Donetsk, alleging that the army is using arms banned under the truce.
Savchenko has become a cause célèbre in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called Friday’s constitutional court ruling “an important step that moves us closer to momentous changes for the state”.
But Moscow quickly shot down those hopes, declaring hers is a criminal case and that she was not detained illegally.
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Ms Savchenko, who has been in pretrial jail for more than a year, was put in the dock in the small southern Russian town of Donetsk on the border with war-torn eastern Ukraine, in a move her defence says is aimed at shielding the proceedings from the public eye.
