The court in Finland found that the Russian paramilitan warrior was guilty of war crimes committed during the first Russian invasion of Ukraine and sentenced him to life in prison on Friday.
Voislav Torden, a Russian citizen, who is also called Yan Petrovskiy, was accused of committing war crimes for leading the assault of Ukrainian soldiers in 2014, when the Russian forces first attacked the Ukrainian Eastern Front.
It was the first time the court in Finland chaired the case concerning The alleged international war crime committed during a conflict in Ukraine and a rare example of convictions for war crimes made when Russian forces first crossed Ukraine more than ten years ago. In 2022, a UN inquiry commission closed that Russian forces committed extensive atrocities in eastern Ukraine.
Mr Torden confessed that he was not guilty of five number of war crimes, but the panel of three judges unanimously found him guilty of leading the assault, murder, mutilation and distribution of harmful images online. He was exempt of the allegations associated with the planning of assault for insufficient evidence, the court said in his decision.
Mr Torden was the leader of Rusich, a neo -Nazi militia that fought alongside the Russian army and is connected with Wagner, a Russian private military society, According to the United States Government. He and other militia members were sanctioned The United States, as well as the European Union and other Allied countries.
It is known that the Rusich mercenaries fought alongside the Russian supported proxy forces in the Donbas area in 2015 and, according to the US Ministry of Cardia, reappeared on the battlefield surrounding the Ukrainian northeast city of Kharkiv.
Mr. Torden was arrested in Helsinki in July 2023 when he tried to enter Finland under a false identity. Mr. Torden was held under Finnish laws of terrorism and later accused of international war crimes. The court was held in Finland after the Supreme Court rejected the application for the issue of Ukrainian prosecutors and quoted that he would not receive a fair trial in Ukraine.
During the court proceedings, the court heard Mr. Torden as a deputy commander in Rusich led the assault at the checkpoint and killed 22 soldiers and injured five others. Rusich the militia took over the checkpoint and, according to a court decision, flew the Ukrainian flag. After the shootout Rusich soldiers searched the injuries of Ukraine and fatally shot at least one of them.
Under the Torden’s command Rusich’s warriors, the body of the Ukrainian soldier was crippling and speaking Rusich’s symbol into the face. Then they photographed a crippled soldier and distributed pictures on social media with the news of Mr. Tord that Rusich Fighters did not show any mercy.
During the trial of the Ukrainian soldier who was injured in the attack, he testified that he saw Mr. Tord during the assault and acknowledged him by tattooing ancient Slavic symbols and his weapons, Russian PKM machine guns, According to the public transmitter Finland, yle.
In his defensive testimony, Mr. Torden said he was on the scene with a journalist and participated in the shooting of propaganda videos for Russian -supported separatist forces. He refused to cripple injured soldiers.
Mr Torden plans to appeal against decisions and convicts, said his lawyer Heikki Lampela.
“My client was more than surprised, directly outraged, because there was no evidence that he had killed any injured persons or gave orders to kill injured people,” Mr. Lampela said in a telephone interview.
Nataliya Malgin, another lawyer of Mr. Tord, told the Russian State Intelligence agency Rio Novosti that the sentence was “politically motivated”.
According to the Ministry of Finance, Mr. Torden was expelled from Norway in 2016 as a threat to national security. He took over the training of Rusich and replaced his previous leader Alexey Yurevich Milchakov, who was injured during the fight in 2022.
