A man accused of war crimes in the apartheid Ukraine is on trial in Finland
HELSINKI (AP) – A man has appeared in court in Finland on charges of war crimes allegedly committed against Ukrainian soldiers in Russia-backed territory in Ukraine in 2014.
Prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment for the accused in the case opened on Thursday at the Helsinki district court, public broadcaster YLE reported.
The suspect’s name was not released when the charges were announced, but Finnish media identified him as Russian Yan Petrovsky, who had been living in Finland under Voislav Torden.
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His lawyer, Heikki Lampela, said he would deny all charges.
The suspect was arrested in July 2023 at Helsinki Airport on his way to Nice, France, with his family.
Finland’s Supreme Court ruled that he could not be extradited to Ukraine, where he faces an arrest warrant, due to the risk of brutal prison conditions there. Finnish prosecutors say the Nordic country is responsible for prosecuting him.
Prosecutors said when they announced the charges on October 31 that they were related to his alleged activities in a unit called Rusich, which fought in the pro-Russian Luhansk region against Ukrainian forces. They said that the defendant “is accused of being involved, as the deputy commander of the division, in actions that violate the laws of war, where he and the soldiers of the division killed 22 Ukrainian soldiers and seriously wounded four.”
He is also accused of “acts contrary to the laws of war regarding the method of war and the treatment of wounded or killed enemy soldiers.”
In March 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. Separate forces backed by Moscow later launched an insurgency in the eastern region of Ukraine, known as Donbas, which escalated into a protracted conflict. Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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