MOSCOW, October 27 (RAPSI) – Moscow’s Basmanny District Court on Monday extended until February 13 the detention of Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, who has been charged with complicity in the death of Russian journalists in southeastern Ukraine, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.

The hearing was held behind closed doors. Savchenko did not attend the hearing because she is still undergoing the required tests in a psychiatric hospital in Moscow.

Earlier on Monday, the leader of the Batkivshchyna party, Yulia Tymoshenko, said she hopes that the election to parliament will help ensure the release of Savchenko. Early parliamentary elections were held in Ukraine on October 26. Batkivshchyna won the smallest number of votes, 5.6%, of the seven parties that have won seats in parliament. Savchenko was at the top of the party list alongside Tymoshenko and social activist Igor Lutsenko.

Savchenko, 33, called in artillery fire via radio. She was seized by anti-Maidan fighters in June but, according to the independence supporters in the Lugansk area, managed to escape. Later she was detained in Russia, which she allegedly entered as a refugee, and was charged with complicity in the murder of Russian journalists during the shelling of separatist positions in the contested Ukrainian region of Lugansk.

Vesti correspondent Igor Kornelyuk and sound engineer Anton Voloshin were killed on June 17 in a mortar attack in the vicinity of Metallist and Mirny, small towns near Lugansk in eastern Ukraine. Both journalists were buried in Moscow.

Savchenko denies the allegations and insists she has no relation to the death of the journalists.