An update on the Savchenko trial from our News Desk:
Savchenko Trial Ends, Verdict To Be Announced March 21
The trial of Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko has ended in a court in Russia.
Savchenko says she was seized in eastern Ukraine in June 2014 while fighting with a volunteer battalion against Russia-backed separatists and taken to Russia illegally.
She was accused of acting as a spotter who called in coordinates for a mortar attack that killed two Russian journalists.
The judge at the court in the small Russian city of Donetsk said on the closing day of the trial on March 9 that the verdict would be announced on March 21 and 22.
She faces up to 23 years in prison if convicted in a trial that has been roundly criticized in the West.
"During the past 20 months, she has become a symbol of Ukrainian national pride and strength," U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in a statement on March 8.
Biden said Savchenko has been "unjustly imprisoned" and that the United States is calling on Russia "to make the right choice -- to drop all charges and release her at once."
On March 8, several hundred people marched to the Russian Embassy in Kyiv to demand Russia free Savchenko.