Savchenko taking liquids after request by Poroshenko:
Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko, on a hunger strike to protest her detention and trial in Russia, has started consuming liquids.
Her lawyer, Mark Feigin, said on his Twitter page on March 10 that Savchenko had taken the action after a request by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Feigin later told Interfax that Savchenko was still refusing food.
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 court in the Russian town of Donetsk announced on March 9 that a verdict in the case would take two days, beginning on March 21.
Savchenko declared she would recognize neither the court nor its verdict.
During the March 9 hearing, she stood on a bench inside the cage for defendants and raised her middle finger in the direction of the judge.
Prosecutors have asked the court to sentence Savchenko to 23 years in prison. (Interfax, Reuters, AFP)