A Finnish court has handed a life imprisonment sentence to a Russian man for war crimes committed in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Voislav Torden, 38, who is a leading member of the Russian far-right group Rusich, was found guilty of four charges in court in Helsinki on Friday, but cleared of a fifth charge.

According to reports, the charges relate to an ambush and clash in the Luhansk region of Ukraine in 2014, in which 22 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and four others were wounded. Torden has spoken out to deny all accusations of wrongdoing.

This marks the first time that a Finnish court has looked into allegations of war crimes in Ukraine.

Torden, who previously went by the name Yan Petrovsky, helped found Rusich, which operated in the eastern Donbas region in support of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. Rusich is a subgroup of the Wagner group.

Reportedly, on September 5, 2014, Torden led his men in an ambush of Ukrainian soldiers by masquerading as Ukrainian forces and then setting fire to the unit’s truck and car. The incident resulted in the deaths of 21 Ukrainian soldiers and injuries to five others, the indictment read.

The court in Helsinki found that there was insufficient evidence to link the Rusich group to the ambush specifically, as other groups were involved in the area. Yet, it still found Torden guilty on all other counts, including that he was in charge of the Rusich mercenaries present at the ambush, who were responsible for at least one murder and one injury.

Torden’s men were also found guilty of disfiguring a stranded soldier by carving the Rusich group’s symbol into his face and taking and distributing “degrading” images of the soldier. Torden himself was found to have posted on social media that the Rusich group would show no mercy.

Three judges came to a unanimous decision to convict Torden of the last four charges, calling the most serious offense, the murder of a soldier, “equivalent to murder due to its brutality and cruelty.”

Even though the court found no sufficient proof to convict Torden of responsibility for the deaths of 21 other Ukrainian soldiers, they ordered him to pay compensation to the family of the soldier he was found guilty of killing.

Torden has continually denied any involvement in the alleged crime, and according to Ilta-Sanomat, he intends to appeal his sentence.

Torden was held at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport in July 2023 at the request of the Ukrainian government, which sought to have him extradited. However, that request was denied by Finland’s Supreme Court due to concerns that he wouldn’t obtain a fair trial in Ukraine, permission was granted to try him in Helsinki for crimes under international law.

In addition to this case, similar charges have been tried domestically relating to acts in countries such as Rwanda and Iraq, reports Yle, Finland’s public broadcaster.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy83g975vyko