Finnish court convicts Russian national of war crimes committed in Ukraine

Translation of article appearing in Le Monde, 14 March 2025, by Anne-Françoise Hivert.

“The conviction of a Russian neo-Nazi in Finland for war crimes committed in Ukraine, a trial that could set a precedent : Vojislav Torden, leader of a paramilitary group, was sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes committed in the separatist region of Donbass in September 2014.

“By Anne-Françoise Hivert (Malmö, Sweden), regional correspondent)

“His trial began in December 2024. On Friday, March 14, Vojislav Torden, born Ian Petrovski, was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Helsinki District Court. Accused of being a leader of the neo-Nazi paramilitary group Rusich, the 38-year-old Russian was found guilty of four war crimes committed near Luhansk, in the Donbass province of eastern Ukraine, in 2014.

“In Kyiv, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office welcomed the court's decision, which "marks a key step in the fight against impunity for perpetrators of serious violations of international humanitarian law." Unsurprisingly, the Russian Embassy in Finland, for its part, denounced the "bias of the Helsinki court, which handed down a clearly politicized sentence against a Russian citizen."

“The acts alleged against Vojislav Torden took place on September 5, 2014, in the separatist region of Luhansk, where Ukrainian soldiers from the Aidar battalion were ambushed at a checkpoint by several pro-Russian paramilitary groups. Leading them to believe that they belonged to Ukrainian forces, the separatists allowed the convoy, made up of a truck and a car carrying 26 Ukrainian soldiers, to advance before opening fire. Twenty-two soldiers were killed and four wounded.

“Although the Helsinki court ruled that "the evidence did not establish with certainty that the Rusich group was solely responsible for the ambush," Torden was found guilty of the four other charges against him. Notably, he was convicted of executing a Ukrainian soldier who was wounded in the attack and authorizing the mutilation of another, who died from his injuries. His men had carved their group's symbol into his cheek.

“He was also convicted of posing next to the body of one of the Ukrainian soldiers and posting degrading images of the victim on social media. During the trial, which concluded in late January in Helsinki, the four Ukrainian soldiers who survived the ambush testified via videoconference. They described the execution of the wounded and identified Vojislav Torden as one of those responsible for the attack. Several videos were released, including one in which he declared that there would be "no mercy" for the Ukrainian soldiers.

“Proclaiming his innocence, the Russian, who announced his intention to appeal the judgment, denied having been one of the leaders of the Rusich group and having participated in the murder of the wounded soldiers. In court, he insisted that he had traveled to Luhansk province in June 2014 for "humanitarian reasons."

“The man was arrested during an identity check by Finnish border guards at Helsinki Airport on 20 July 2023. He was about to board a flight to Nice, holding a Russian passport and a one-year residence permit in Finland, obtained on the grounds of family ties. Border guards discovered his dual identity and noted that he was wanted for terrorist acts in Ukraine, that he was on the list of 2,400 Russian figures subject to European sanctions, and that he was subject to an entry ban from the Schengen area issued by Norway, where he had been living until his departure for Luhansk.

“Placed in pre-trial detention, he was due to be deported to Russia when Kyiv requested his extradition to Ukraine in August 2023. Believing that he risked being detained in inhumane conditions and would not receive a fair trial in Ukraine, the Supreme Court in Helsinki refused. The Finnish courts then took up the case, invoking their universal jurisdiction over war crimes, considering that the fighting in eastern Ukraine in 2014 already formed part of an international armed conflict – a condition for universal jurisdiction to be exercised.

“This exceptional trial could set a precedent. It could encourage other countries to invoke universal jurisdiction to try crimes committed in Ukraine, including acts committed before February 2022 and the large-scale invasion of the country. This verdict also allows the European Union to keep a former Russian soldier in its prisons, who could be used as part of a future prisoner exchange with Moscow. In August 2024, an agreement between Russia and several Western countries resulted in the release of 16 people detained in Russia and Belarus, in exchange for the release of eight Russian nationals imprisoned in the United States and Europe, and two children.”

Translated by David Buzard with the assistance of Google Translate.