The Helsinki District Court in Finland on Friday sentenced a 38-year-old man to life for committing war crimes in Ukraine. Voislav Torden, 38, Russian-Norwegian better known as Yan Petrovskiy, was a deputy leader of a neo-Nazi paramilitary unit called Rusich, during Russia’s first attacks on Ukraine in 2014.
According to the prosecutors of Helsinki’s District Court, Petrovskyi was responsible for leading an attack on Ukraine’s eastern frontier in 2014, which left approximately 20 Ukrainian troops dead. Petrovskyi was accused of ordering his men to carve Rusich’s emblem onto a man’s chest. He was also charged for posing with a dead Ukrainian troop member’s body for pictures, which were later uploaded to social media.
Section 7, Chapter 1 of Finland’s Penal Code implies that Finnish courts may ‘reach over’ even to acts committed outside of the country, the punishability of which is based on an international agreement binding on Finland. This is otherwise known as universal jurisdiction. Finland ratified the 1949 Geneva Conventions concerning the protection of civilians, the treatment of war prisoners, and the wounded and sick in armed forces back in 1955.
Ukraine’s General Prosecutor saluted the conviction and further stated that the case marks a key milestone for holding perpetrators of war crimes accountable. The Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo) has warned that the conviction could be dangerous for Finns in Russia, as they could be used as leverage in exchange for Petrovskyi.
In 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Rusich a threat to the peace and national security of the United States and its allies. The designation states that Rusich’s members were accused of and filmed committing attrocities against deceased and captured Ukrainian soldiers.
Petrovskyi was expelled from Norway in 2016, after having lived there since 2004, for being a threat to the country’s national security. He was arrested in Finland on 20 July 2023 when Ukraine demanded he be extradited there.
The demand was rejected by the Finland Supreme Court, due to concerns for human rights violations in the Ukrainian prison system. Human rights violations were very present during the 2014 attack on Ukraine. According to an investigation by Amnesty International, there was “no doubt” that summary killings were executed by both sides in the conflict.
These concerns were also highlighted by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which reported an increased number of human rights violations, such as killings and torture, throughout the conflict.
War prisoners are accorded humane treatment by articles 13, 14, and 15 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 12 August 1949. Since 2014, war crimes have been alleged to be continuously happening in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. In her statement concerning the conclusion of the preliminary examination of the situation in Ukraine, the former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court stated that there was “a reasonable basis” to conclude that there was a broad range of conduct amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity within the jurisdiction of the court.
The UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine stated last month that Russia’s continuous breaches of international humanitarian law are causing severe civilian damage. The Commission also found new evidence of war crimes committed by Russia.
