Hunger-striking Ukrainian pilot Savchenko starts consuming liquids - lawyer

Former Ukrainian army pilot Nadezhda Savchenko looks out from a glass-walled cage as she attends a court hearing in the southern border town of Donetsk in Rostov region, Russia, March 9, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The European Union's foreign policy chief on Thursday told Russia to free Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot accused over the killing of two Russian journalists, as Savchenko relaxed a hunger strike by starting to take liquids.

The 34-year-old is regarded as a national hero by many Ukrainians, but is charged in Russia with complicity in the killing of two Russian TV journalists during fighting between Ukrainian government troops and separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014. She denies wrongdoing.