MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/. Kremlin’s position plays no role at all in the Russian investigation in regard to detained Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, Russian president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
"Nothing has changed in the Kremlin’s position, because this is not about the Kremlin’s position since it is the case, when the Kremlin’s position plays no role at all," President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman told journalists.
"There is an investigation in regard to her [Savchenko] and investigators accuse her of committing serious crimes. Her guilt will be established in court," Peskov said adding that "in this case the Kremlin has no rights to influence the investigation in any way, let alone the court trial."
Savchenko is accused of involvement in the murder of two Russian journalists in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region last summer, as well as of illegal crossing of the border with Russia. The materials of her case were singled out from the general case on Ukrainian servicemen’s committing genocide and using banned means and methods of war. She has been arraigned. The period of investigation on her case has been extended until November 13.
If found guilty, Savchenko faces up to 25 years in prison. Russian investigators say that Savchenko, the gunner of a Mi-24 helicopter, joined the notorious Aidar battalion during combat operations in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine in June 2014. Noting the position of a filming crew of the Russian State Broadcasting Company and other civilians, she allegedly reported the data to mortar-equipped personnel who fired on the crew and the civilians.
As a result, correspondent Igor Kornelyuk and sound engineer Anton Voloshin were killed on June 17, 2014.
Savchenko, who has been in custody in Russia since July 2014, does not admit her guilt.