Finnish Court sentences Russian man to life for war crimes in Ukraine

In a rare case of prosecution, Yan Petrovsky, also known as Voislav Torden, was convicted for activities in Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine a decade ago.

Members of the media gather near a screen as Yan Petrovsky, also known as Voislav Toden, an ex-commander of the Russian far-right extremist Rusich paramilitary group, who is suspected of committing war crimes in Ukraine, attends a trial, as projected on a screen, in Helsinki, Finland | Lehtikuva/Heikki Saukkomaa via Reuters

Helsinki: A Finnish district court said on Friday it has found a Russian man guilty of committing war crimes in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015, sentencing him to life in prison.

The trial of Yan Petrovsky, who is also known as Voislav Torden, was a rare case of prosecutors outside Ukraine seeking justice for victims of alleged war crimes in a conflict that began long before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Petrovsky, who was born in 1987, faced five charges related to his activities in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine a decade ago.

Petrovsky, who has been under European Union and U.S. sanctions since 2022, has denied all charges, his lawyer Heikki Lampela told the Helsinki court last December.

(Reporting by Essi Lehto, editing by Terje Solsvik and Stine Jacobsen)

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