France gears up for another round of rail strikes

Regional train services in France will be running a half service on Thursday as workers strike against planned changes to France’s employment laws.

France’s national rail operator SNCF announced Wednesday that the strike would affect TER and Transilien regional trains, and that non-TGV intercity services would be running a 40 percent service.

High-speed TGV services will also be affected, with a half service in northern France, and a 75 percent service in all other French regions.

International Eurostar, Thalys and Aleo trains are not expected to be affected by the strikes.

Unveiled in mid-February, the proposed employment law named after Economy Minister Myriam El Khomri, is designed to give employers more flexibility in hiring and firing. Critics say it unduly threatens job security.

Thursday’s industrial action is not expected to have the same widespread impact as rail strikes that took place on March 9, after two major unions – UNSA and the CFDT - said their members will continue to work.

Both unions said they believed action focused against the El Kohmry Law would eclipse specific concerns about working conditions on French railways.

The March 9 strikes were a rare show of unity for France’s powerful but disparate unions, who want extra staff to be recruited, as well as pay rises and guarantees about their working conditions.

They also say that management of the state rail system is “catastrophic” and that so far in 2016, 1,400 trains have been cancelled because there was insufficient staff to run them.

Since 2003, the SNCF has reduced its workforce by 25,000 by not replacing staff as they retire. In 2015, the SNCF had just under 150,000 employees.

Athens' airport to nowhere: Migrants stranded in Greek limbo

For decades, Ellinikon International Airport has connected Athens to wealthier EU capitals. Now the abandoned structure has been taken over by thousands of migrants desperate to make their way further north into Europe.

It's been 15 years since the last plane took off from the Greek capital's former international airport, which stretches along the Aegean Sea and lies a short drive south of the city centre. If things had gone according to plan, Ellinikon (also known as Hellinikon) might have become Athens' equivalent of Tempelhof Airport in Berlin: a sprawling and much-loved communal area where families, cyclists, skaters and kite-flyers whiz along the disused runways and revel in unkempt meadows that stretch out to the horizon.

But in crisis-hit Greece, nothing has gone according to plan. Part of the airport site was hastily redeveloped just in time to host the baseball, hockey, kayak and fencing events of the 2004 Olympics. The following year architects were invited to submit plans for a new metropolitan park, trumpeted as Europe's largest. But the work was due to start in 2008, the year financial markets collapsed and Greece began its descent into economic purgatory.

As one ill-fated EU bailout followed another, Greece was told to sell its “crown jewels” – including Ellinikon and the nearby port of Piraeus, Europe's largest passenger terminal. Qatar snapped up a first chunk of the airport, despite the pleas of local residents to go ahead with the park. Then came the migrants. They now number 4,359, crammed into abandoned departure lounges and former Olympic facilities in harrowing conditions.

'Join us or go away'

The migrants at Ellinikon and at the port of Piraeus – where some 6,000 huddle in tents with no roof above them – have been stuck in limbo since countries to the north closed their borders earlier this month. More than 51,000 are now trapped in Greece, a cash-strapped country they never envisaged as their final destination when they set off from home fleeing poverty, war and persecution.

A migrant child peeps through the entrance to a tent in the main hall of the Ellinikon Airport, which has been closed since 2001. © Sarah Leduc

Hassan Haji, a 36-year-old nurse from northern Iraq, has been staying at Ellinikon for a month with his wife Ines and their four children, aged one to ten. Like many others, they were hoping to move on to Germany where they have friends and family. Now they sit in the airport's overcrowded departure lounge, waiting to hear if and when the borders will reopen.

In the meantime, Haji has teamed up with relatives to form a tiny camp within the camp, with half a dozen tents grouped together around a miniscule communal area offering just enough space to sit down for a chat on sleeping mats and grey UN blankets. He describes his journey to Greece with a mix of gestures and broken English, helped by his cousin Malalla al-Khany.

Haji and his travel companions are Yazidis, an ethnic and religious minority whose members have been kidnapped, raped and murdered by the Islamic State (IS) group. They left their village near Mosul in Iraq just before it was stormed by the jihadist group, heading first for Sinjar, where IS militants had been driven out by Kurdish fighters.

“The [Kurdish] peshmerga said, 'Join our forces or go away,' so we drove on to the Turkish border,” says al-Khany, 21, who trained as a translator at Mosul University. They went on to Istanbul and the smuggling hub of Izmir, where they sold their car to pay for the crossing to Greece. They were charged $2,000 per adult and half that amount for the children. Haji had to pay $8,000 for his family alone.

The Iraqi migrants had been promised a “big and modern” boat but were hauled onto a rickety raft and held at gunpoint. Fortunately all of them survived the four-hour crossing to the Greek island of Chios, a short but treacherous route that has claimed hundreds of lives since the start of the migrant crisis.

After registering with Greek authorities, Haji and his relatives were each given a piece of paper stating that they can stay in Greece for six months, after which they will be deported. The text is in Greek only. Before showing it to FRANCE 24, none of them had any idea what it said.

Detention centre

Unlike the countless other squats and NGO-run shelters that have sprung up across Greece since the start of the crisis, Ellenikon is, in theory, an “official” camp. But it is hard to find any signs of officialdom. Other than an unmarked police car parked discreetly outside the structure and dozens of Greek volunteers serving food to a long queue of migrants, there is no evidence of anyone running or surveilling the camp.

Hassan Haji (left) and Mallala al-Khany, two Yazidis from the Mosul region of northern Iraq, have been living at the camp at Ellinikon Airport since the end of February. © Sarah Leduc

The abandoned airport is the legacy of a now-defunct phase of the refugee crisis, when Germany opened its borders to hundreds of thousands and Greece simply waved them through, well aware that none of them planned to apply for asylum in the EU's weakest economy.

Ideological factors have also guided Greece's actions. When it came to power in January 2015, the left-wing Syriza party moved to close the grimmest migrant detention centres, describing them as inhumane. It ordered police not to use force to remove people camping in ports and at border posts. The contrast with Balkan countries north of Greece, where riot police have frequently clashed with migrants, is glaring.

In places like Ellenikon, migrants are free to walk in and out of the camp and wander into town. Those who can afford to buy food go to nearby stores, “because the food at the camp is bad and the bread is like stone”, says al-Khany.

But the Ellenikon camp was never meant to last, or to house this many people. The situation here and in other parts of the Athens region has deteriorated rapidly as the result of a March agreement between the EU and Turkey, aimed at halting an influx of more than a million "irregular migrants" through Greece since January last year.

Under the deal, migrants arriving on the Greek islands are now individually assessed by the Greek authorities, backed by EU staff. Anyone who does not apply for asylum will be sent back starting April 4, as will anyone whose claim is rejected. For every Syrian migrant sent back to Turkey, one Syrian already in Turkey will be resettled in the EU.

Implementation of the deal has presented Greece with a massive logistical challenge. This involved emptying Greek islands of all those who had crossed over from Turkey prior to the deal in order to make way for the newcomers and organise expulsions.

As a result, the numbers of refugees have swollen in Athens and elsewhere on the mainland. Their fate is not addressed by the deal with Turkish authorities, which rights groups have slammed as a gross violation of refugee conventions. They say the agreement has effectively turned Greece into a detention centre.

The Greek government has promised to speed up the creation of new reception centres for up to 30,000 migrants trapped in the country. It has bitterly complained that emergency funds promised by the EU to help cope with the crisis are yet to arrive.

Local officials are also under pressure to find shelter for refugee families. On Wednesday, the municipality of Athens announced a scheme to house 1,200 vulnerable asylum seekers in houses and hotels by the summer. In Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city, the mayor has vowed to find accommodation for 1,400.

'We can't go back'

In the meantime, more and more tents have sprung up at Ellinikon, covering every square foot of the former terminal and spreading outside into the open air. Families hang up bits of cloth for a little privacy. Men while away the time as best they can while swarms of children run amok and women stay mostly inside their tents. The air is thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and clothes.

“Everywhere is dirty. There is only one doctor and four cold showers for all of us,” says al-Khany. “They just feed us, like animals, and then nothing else.”

Safety is another issue. There are just 27 Yazidis in the terminal, huddled together in two clusters. They are surrounded by Afghans, who make up the majority of the camp's population. In one sign of tension between the communities, Yazidis accuse Afghans of stealing their belongings, while Afghans make the same claim of Iranians.

Despite the dire conditions, there is no going back for Haji and al-Khany. “We can't return to Iraq,” says the latter. “We have no house, we sold our car; we have nothing. If there is no other option, we will apply to live in Greece.”

A mother and child next to drying washing at the entrance to the former airport. © Sarah Leduc

Others may not even have that option. As European countries scramble to stem the northward flow from Greece, Afghans and Pakistanis have slipped down the refugee social ladder. Most are considered economic migrants, regardless of their personal stories.

The Afghans at Ellinikon tend to be ethnic Hazaras, recognisable by their distinctive features, a legacy of their East Asian ancestry. Like Iraq's Yazidis, Hazaras have long been oppressed by other groups that make up the patchwork of ethnicities in Aghanistan. They are mainly Shiite Muslims in a Sunni-majority country, and frequent targets of the Taliban.

Pervaiz Abdullahi, 19, hails from a village near Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. He worked as an IT engineer for an American company until conditions became too dangerous. At Ellinikon, his language skills have turned him into a mediator between different groups.

“I left because the Taliban always attack and kill. They killed my two elder brothers,” he says. “The Taliban told me: ‘Join us and help us kill Americans’. They offered me money. But I fled.”

Abdullahi arrived in Athens in late February after travelling through Iran, Turkey and the Greek island of Lesbos. Just as he prepared to head north he was told that Macedonian authorities had reclassified all Afghans as economic migrants and would stop them at the border.

“Germany, UK, France – I am ready to go anywhere,” he says in fluent English, refusing to believe that the borders are likely to remain shut for the foreseeable future. “Can you tell France to send a plane? For two thousand people? Five thousand people? We will come.”

Barring an unexpected change of policy, there will be no such plane arriving in Athens for Abdullahi. As he speaks, a sign above him reads “Domestic flights” – a dispiriting reminder that, for the time being, his future lies in Greece. 

Seeking justice in a French court for an IS-group beheading

More than a year after their son, a Syrian army soldier, was beheaded by Islamic State (IS) group militants, Fayza and Ghassan M. have filed a civil lawsuit against French jihadist Maxime Hauchard, one of the alleged killers, in a French court.

It’s a chilling image nobody should have to see, let alone a parent. But that’s what Fayza and Ghassan forced themselves to do in November 2014, when they watched an IS group video featuring a jihadist beheading their son.

The 16-minute clip, which announced the decapitation of former US Army Ranger Peter Kassig, made headlines across the world. But the 26-year-old American was not the only victim in that clip. In what was probably a macabre ploy to prolong and dramatise their grisly message, the IS group also included the beheadings of 18 men identified as, “Nusayri officers and pilots in the hands of the Khilafa [caliphate]”.

“Nusayri” is the term employed by the jihadist group for Alawites, the Shiite minority sect to whichSyrian President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

The 18 condemned men in the video were Syrian military officers -- and they included Fayza and Ghassan’s eldest son, Ghaith.

More than a year after that grim video appeared online, the couple has traveled from the central Syrian city of Homs to Paris, where they hope to seek justice for their son.

The gray dampness of a Paris spring day is thousands of miles and a world away from the parched battlefields of eastern Syria, where their son met his grisly end. But in what could be a landmark case for international justice and the campaign against the IS group, the Syrian couple is suing a French national in a French court for his alleged role in their son’s murder.

The Frenchman named in the lawsuit is Maxime Hauchard, a 24-year-old native of Normandy familiar to French intelligence officials. Born and raised in a Catholic family in Le Bosc-Roger-en-Roumois, a sleepy village in northern France, Hauchard is an unlikely jihadist who personifies some of the bewildering profiles of foreign fighters who have signed up for the IS group cause.

In a July 2014 interview from Syria with French TV station BFM, Hauchard revealed that he had converted to Islam at 17 after watching YouTube videos. He then traveled to the West African country of Mauritania for religious instruction, but left when he found the education "not strict enough". In August 2013, posing as a humanitarian worker, the Normandy native traveled to Turkey and crossed the border to Syria, where he is believed to be currently living.

The 24-year-old Frenchman was one of the unmasked IS group jihadists -- many of them foreign fighters -- who were filmed beheading captives in the 2014 video. Shortly after the video’s release,Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve confirmed that French intelligence services had analysed the video and concluded that “it is strongly presumed that the person [in the video] is Maxime Hauchard, born in 1992”. An international arrest warrant was issued for his arrest.

More than five years after the Syrian uprising broke, the grim nexus of that conflict is taking its toll across the world and the true impact is being felt, sometimes in the unlikeliest places.

Dressed in a neat, all-black pant suit, Fayza gazes at a TV screen in a Paris hostel room silently streaming the latest updates on the March 22 Brussels attacks investigations.

“I’m sorry for the Brussels victims because their families are also suffering, they are also victims. The things these terrorists have done -- haram, haram, haram,” says Fayza, repeating the Arabic word for “forbidden under Islamic law”, before returning to a theme that is often repeated in the course of the interview. “We are also suffering. But we are not alone. There are so many people in our position.”

A military career path for father and son 
Fayza and Ghassan’s harrowing experience is being mirrored across Syria, where kidnappings and the handover of captives between rebel groups and militant commanders are rampant.

A retired Syrian army officer, Ghassan raised his two sons and a daughter in Homs, providing them all the middle class comforts he could afford.

His eldest son, Ghaith, joined the Syrian army shortly after graduation following a common career path in the Alawite community since the current Syrian leader’s father, Hafez al-Assad, came to power in the 1970s.

In 2007, four years before anti-regime protests broke out, Ghaith was posted to Raqqa. Back then, little did the family know that the eastern Syrian city would gain international notoriety as the “capital” of the IS group’s so-called caliphate.

Although he moved from home, Ghaith continued to see his family in Homs every month. In 2010, he got married and the newly-weds bought an apartment in Raqqa, where the couple had a son, born a year after the Syrian uprising broke.

On December 13, 2012 -- a day etched in the couple’s memory -- Fayza and Ghassan saw their son. "That was the last time we saw him, but we did not know it at the time," says Ghassan, pausing to gaze at the floor. At this stage, Fayza takes up the narrative.

"On January 3 [2013], he sent us a photo of him promoted him to the rank of naqib [captain in the Syrian army]. He was so happy and proud," recalls his mother, clicking through images on her mobile to find the photograph of her son, beaming in his uniform with captain epaulettes, on his promotion day.

It was the last piece of happy news the couple would receive from their eldest son.

‘If you want, you can have lunch with Assad’
Ten days later, Ghaith was captured in a battle between Raqqa and Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria by FSA (Free Syrian Army) rebels.

It was the start of a harrowing nightmare for the family. Kidnappings have long been a thriving subsidiary of the war business, particularly in the Syria-Lebanon region. Estimates of the number of abductions – by jihadists, moderate rebels, established criminal networks or upstart ones -- are hard to arrive at given the lawlessness across Syria. But anecdotal evidence of a kidnapping surge abounds, with an untold number of Syrian families enduring the psychological trauma of trying to get information and secure the release of loved ones in the absence of law enforcement mechanisms.

Shortly after he fell into rebel hands, Ghaith featured in an FSA video of captured Syrian civil servants and soldiers. His captors then contacted the family by phone, seeking a prisoner exchange.

“We tried and we tried, but it was impossible,” explains Ghassan. “Some of the [regime’s] prisoners were killers and they would never have been released.”

But Ghaith’s captors were implacable. “They told me you’re an Alawite. If you want, you can have lunch with Assad. But I’m not the defense minister,” says Ghassan helplessly.

Enter the intermediaries – for a price
And so, the negotiations continued at a painstaking pace until the FSA unit holding their son threatened to sell Ghaith to Jabhat al-Nusra, al Qaeda’s Syria branch. “They told me, ‘you know what Nusra will do with an Alawite,’” recounts Ghassan.

The FSA rebels were right. After six months of fruitless negotiations, Ghaith was turned over to the al Qaeda group – and that’s when the phone calls got even more tormenting.

“At first, Nusra asked for a prisoner exchange. When we said we couldn’t manage that, they started demanding money,” said Ghassan.

The ransom demands were exorbitant for a middle class Syrian family struggling to get by in a wartime economy. Nusra asked for $30,000, or around €22,000 under the exchange rate at that time. "Even if I -- and my brothers -- sold everything we owned, we would never get that amount of money,” explains Ghassan.

Frantic negotiations ensured, with the family using the help of several intermediaries, including tribal chiefs – always for a price. “In total, I paid around 935,000 [Syrian pounds or around €4,600] to intermediaries,” explains Ghassan.

‘In three days you will be with us’
Their son’s well-being, under the circumstances, was their top priority. But things weren’t looking good. Sitting on a bed in a Paris hostel room, Ghassan crosses his palms and exhales slowly before plunging into a particularly tortuous chapter of their travails.

“They were always insulting me in the worst possible way because I’m Alawite and they were torturing him in the background, I could hear him scream,” says Ghassan. “I had a heart attack,” Fayza adds, “because they kept asking, ‘Do you want a finger or a hand or a leg...,’” she breaks down sobbing, unable, for the moment, to continue.

At that stage, the negotiations suddenly got frantic. Jabhat al-Nusra threatened to sell Ghaith to the IS group. It was September 2014 by then, 20 months into their son’s captivity, and the IS group’s proclivity for brutality was well-known.

“Things got rushed and we finally reached an agreement for a release against 2.5 million Syrian pounds [around €12,400]," says Ghassan.

The family somehow managed to cobble together the money. The sum was handed over to an intermediary who promised Ghassan his son would be released within three days. "I was confident. They allowed me to call my son and I told him, 'Good news: in three days you will be with us.'"

‘France has allowed killers to come to Syria’

But three months passed without any news. No more phone calls, no more ransom demands, no more threats, nothing.

"Then one day, one of our relatives told us about the beheading video. In fact, our neighbors knew about it, but no one dared tell us," recounts Fayza.

For good reason. Although Kassig’s beheading is not viewed in the video, the death squad-style executions of the Syrian captives are displayed in gruesome slow motion.

More than a year after the video release, the emotional wounds for Ghaith’s parents are still raw. As the sobbing retired Syrian army man buries his face in his hands, his wife, softly muttering, “haram, haram,” digs into a suitcase and fishes out a plastic bag full of photographs of their son.

Fayza and Ghassan will have to relive their trauma again, probably repeatedly, in a Paris courtroom in the days to come as they seek justice for their son. On Friday, March 25, the couple presented their evidence to a French judge. Their lawyer, Fabrice Delinde, told reporters it was “the first time that a Syrian family is a plaintiff in a case implicating a French jihadist who has gone to Syria called”.

Attempts by Ghaith’s parents to bring the case to court in France were initially rejected, but the Paris appeals court later ruled it was admissible.

For Ghassan, the unprecedented legal move makes perfect sense. “France has allowed killers to come to Syria to kill our sons,” says Ghassan. "The Syrian justice system cannot function in the current context. It is up to France to judge its citizens when they commit atrocities in our country."

Justice, if it comes, will be most welcome. But Fayza insists nothing can ever take away the pain.

“It’s an open wound," she admits. "I’m sorry to say this, but even if you look sad, you cannot feel what I feel. I am bleeding inside.”

UN expresses ‘deep concern’ over EU-Turkey migrant deal

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the UN's refugee chief expressed concern on Tuesday over a draft deal between the European Union and Turkey aimed at resolving the migrant crisis.

The 28-nation bloc has been deeply divided over how to deal with the influx of people seeking safety and a better life after fleeing the violence in Syria and Iraq.

"Extreme right-wing and nationalistic political parties are inflaming the situation where we need to be seeking solutions, harmonious solutions based on shared responsibilities," Ban said during a visit to Berlin on Tuesday.

Speaking after his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the UN chief also said he was "deeply worried by growing anti-migrant and anti-refugee rhetoric and by violent attacks against these communities".

Ban said the European Union "can do much more" to resolve the migrant crisis.

The head of the UN refugee agency said he was also "deeply concerned" by a proposed deal between the EU and Ankara that would involve people being sent back to Turkey.

"As a first reaction I'm deeply concerned about any arrangement that would involve the blanket return of anyone from one country to another without spelling out the refugee protection safeguards under international law," UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi told the European Parliament.

Lawmakers at the parliament in Strasbourg, France, applauded after he made the comment.

At a summit in Brussels on Monday, European Union leaders in principle backed a Turkish proposal to take back all illegal migrants landing on the overstretched Greek islands.

Turkey suggested a one-for-one deal under which the EU would resettle one Syrian refugee from camps in Turkey in exchange for every Syrian that Turkey takes from Greece in a bid to reduce the incentive for people to board boats bound for Europe.

‘EUROPE’S DESPERATE,’ SAYS FRANCE 24’S DOUGLAS HERBERT

'Insufficient guarantees'

Turkey is the main departure point for the more than 1 million migrants who have made the dangerous crossing to Europe since the start of 2015. It is home to 2.7 million refugees from the war in Syria, more than any other country.

But Grandi said the plan – which EU leaders hope to agree formally at a summit next week – offered insufficient guarantees under international law.

He said refugees should only be returned to a country if it could be proved that their asylum applications would be properly processed, and that they would "enjoy asylum in accordance with accepted international standards and have full access to education, work, health care and, if necessary, social assistance".

He also called for refugees to be screened before being sent away from Greece "to identify highly at-risk categories that may not be appropriate for return, even if the above conditions are met".

Grandi appealed to the international community to share Turkey's burden "more widely" and urged finding better ways to encourage refugees not to risk their lives crossing to Europe.

"The UNHCR has been calling on [EU] states to increase different legal routes for Syrian refugees so they do not have to resort to people smugglers and to dangerous journeys," he said.

The EU has insisted that the deal would comply with international laws on the treatment of refugees.

"The details that will be hammered out between now and the March European Council [summit] will obviously be in full compliance with both European and international law," European Commission spokesman Alex Winterstein told reporters.

"There is now a very important understanding of principle, details will now be discussed, and you can be sure that the agreement that will come at the end of it will comply with both European and international law."

UK, EU leaders set to clash over financial regulation

The extent to which British regulators can write their own banking rules remains a stumbling block ahead of a summit of European Union leaders on Thursday that will try to thrash out a deal to keep Britain in the bloc.

The latest draft seen by Reuters of Britain's "new settlement" with the EU shows disagreement over the conditions for granting leeway to national regulators whose currencies are outside the euro zone.

Where negotiators had hoped to settle issues of economic governance before the summit, the final draft leaves a key section on financial regulation in square brackets, indicating it will be thrashed out at the top political level.

Britain plans to hold a referendum, probably in June, on whether to stay a member of the EU and the draft, which maps out a new deal with the EU, is aimed at persuading Britons to stay in the 28-country bloc.

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The draft says regulators outside the euro zone, such as the Bank of England in London, are responsible for supervision of their own banks and markets when it comes to preserving financial stability.

But this is subject to two conditions which lawmakers in Britain have said negates the freedom being offered.

The latest draft still says that a regulator such as the BoE must take into account the "requirements of group supervision" - a reference to the European Central Bank, which is the group supervisor for the euro zone's top lenders which have operations in London.

Secondly, "this is without prejudice to the development of the single rulebook" and to "the existing powers of the Union institutions and relevant Union bodies to take action that is necessary to respond to threats to financial stability," the draft text says.

The ECB would be included in a list of relevant union bodies, adding to concerns over the scope for the BoE to regulate its own markets.

Ukrainian pilot to tell Russian court: Free me or watch me starve to death

A Ukrainian woman pilot on trial in Russia over the killing of two Russian journalists plans to tell a court to release her within 10 days of pronouncing its verdict or she will starve herself to death.

Nadezhda Savchenko, 34, was captured by pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine in June 2014 and denies any wrongdoing.

The helicopter pilot, who faces up to 25 years in jail if found guilty, has become a national hero for many in Ukraine who see her as a symbol of anti-Kremlin defiance.

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Savchenko said on Thursday she was going on hunger strike to protest the length of what she said was an unjust legal process after the judge in her trial adjourned proceedings just as she was about to deliver a final speech.

On Friday her sister published on social media the text of what she had planned to say in court.

Peppered with excoriating criticism of modern Russia and President Vladimir Putin, it makes clear Savchenko plans to try to use her hunger strike to force Moscow to do a deal with Ukraine to release her.

Once the verdict is pronounced the text of her speech shows she plans to deliver the court an ultimatum.

"Russia will have no more than 10 days to return me to Ukraine from where they snatched me," she wrote.

"TOTALITARIAN REGIME"

Referring to a possible deal for her release that might involve Russia, Ukraine and the West, she wrote: "While this trading over me continues, life will be leaving me, and Russia all the same will return me to Ukraine dead or alive."

It is unclear whether the court will allow her to read out the speech. Her defense lawyers have accused Moscow of conducting a "show trial" and Western politicians and rights groups have called for her release.

"I want the entire civilized and democratic world to understand that Russia is a third-world country with a totalitarian regime and a despotic dictator, in which they spit on human rights and international law," Savchenko wrote in the text released by her sister.

Putin, she wrote, was a "tyrant with imperial ambitions suffering from a Hitler/Napoleon complex."

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Friday Kiev would redouble its efforts to bring Savchenko home.

"This farce absolutely cannot continue," his press service quoted him as saying.

State prosecutors' allegations center on Savchenko's conduct during the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, which pits pro-Kremlin rebels against the Ukrainian army.

Prosecutors say that in June 2014 Savchenko had helped to direct artillery fire in the Luhansk region where a shell killed two Russian television reporters.

Her lawyers say the time and location of calls made from her mobile phone disproves the allegations.

A verdict is expected in the case soon.