Yan Petrovsky / Voislav Torden, co-founder of the notorious Rusich far-right mercenary group, claimed to have never committed the war crimes about which he and fellow neo+Nazi Alexei Milchakov very publicly boasted
Petrovsky/ Torden in court Photo Pasi Liesimaa, right Screenshot from a video posted in 2014 (montage ILTALEHTI)
Petrovsky/ Torden in court Photo Pasi Liesimaa, right Screenshot from a video posted in 2014 (montage ILTALEHTI)
A Finnish court has found Yan Petrovsky (Voislav Torden) guilty of four war crimes in Luhansk oblast and has sentenced him to life imprisonment. The prosecutor had earlier stated that all five charges had been proven, with nothing less than a life sentence appropriate. Petrovsky, a 38-year-old Russian national, has said he will appeal against the sentence and has tried to claim that the numerous videos in which he can be seen boasting of or committing war crimes were for ‘propaganda recruitment’ purposes.
All of the crimes were committed in Luhansk oblast in 2014, with Petrovsky charged both with direct involvement in war crimes, and in his capacity as the deputy commander of the far-right Rusich military group of mercenaries, involved in a treacherous ambush of Ukrainian defenders from the Aidar Battalion. In its ruling on 14 March, the Helsinki District Court dismissed one of the charges, saying that it had not been proven that Rusich was behind the ambush on 5 September 2014. It was not in dispute that the Rusich members and Petrovsky / Torden were involved, however other militant groups had also taken part.
Petrovsky, together with fellow neo-Nazi, co-founder and commander of Rusich, Alexei Milchakov, have been wanted in Ukraine for war crimes since 2014. Both men were also under US sanctions, as is Rusich, which is now operating as a unit of the notorious Wagner mercenary group. Such impediments to travel in Europe were, presumably, the reason that Petrovsky was travelling under the name Voislav Torden when he was arrested, trying to enter Finland, on 20 July 2023. This was the first such trial for international crimes committed in Ukraine under Finnish legislation. The trial began in early December 2024, almost exactly a year after Finland’s Supreme Court ruled that Petrovsky / Torden could not be extradited to Ukraine because of the inadequate conditions in Ukrainian penitentiary institutions.
Most of the war crimes charges were over the killing of 22 Ukrainian soldiers and serious wounding of four others in the ambush at a checkpoint near the city of Shchastia in Luhansk oblast on 5 September 2014. This was a deliberate and treacherous ambush, with the Russian / pro-Russian militants who had gained control of the checkpoint flying a Ukrainian flag in order to trick the Aidar Battalion defenders and lure them to their death. It is prohibited under international law and rules of warfare to use the flag of the opposing side to carry out such ambushes.
The court found unanimously that Petrovsky/Torden was guilty of four war crimes. He and his Rusich mercenary subordinates had definitely taken part in the ambush killing at least one of the Ukrainian soldiers and injuring another.
Petrovsky/Torden had allowed his subordinates to mutilate one of the wounded soldiers by carving out the Rusich group symbol on his cheek. He had also desecrated a slain soldier’s memory by posing by his body and circulating this on the Internet. He had also made and circulated equally degrading photos with his neo-Nazi co-founder of Rusich gloating over a dead man’s body.
The final charge, which he was found guilty of, was over statements that Rusich would not take prisoners. The prosecution presented a number of videos widely available on the Internet, on which Petrovsky / Torden says that “the enemy must be destroyed and annihilated”. As well as video footage, there are also witnesses, including one of the men whose injuries were less serious, and who was therefore ‘allowed to live’, in order to be used in exchanges of prisoners. He did not know Petrovsky but was able to identify him through his very distinctive tattoos and also noted the specific machine gun that Petrovsky was known to use.
It was earlier reported that Petrovsky / Torden and his lawyer, Heikki Lampela, were rejecting all of the charges, and claiming that he had only been in the area filming a propaganda recruitment video. They appear to have also tried to deny that he was the deputy commander of Rusich, and that the latter is a neo-Nazi group.
The panel of three judges at the Helsinki District Court were clearly unconvinced. It remains to be seen if these will be the arguments presented at appeal level.
Back in June 2014, Alexei Milchakov left no room for doubt that they were being paid for their killing services, and has never concealed his Nazi views. Nor, up till now, had Petrovsky / Torden. In October 2018, he was arrested in Norway, with this seemingly less linked with his crimes in Ukraine, but because of his far-right / neo-Nazi activities in Norway. On that occasion, frustratingly, Petrovsky was simply deported back to Russia.
Although Milchakov had earlier been prosecuted in his native St. Petersburg for his decapitating of a puppy on a widely circulated video and his incitement of other neo-Nazis to kill down-and-outs, Russian propaganda media were happy to take interviews of both Milchakov and Petrovsky. In one interview, Petrovsky announced that they were “building a Russian national ‘Chechnya’ where everything will be only for the Russian people”. Both men were unfailingly viewed as ‘heroes of Novorossiya’ and took part in ‘training’ young people from occupied Donbas and Russia.
Petrovsky/Torden is now trying to deny everything that he and Milchakov boasted of while confident of their impunity (as well as remuneration) for killing Ukrainians.