Finland charges a combatant with war crimes allegedly committed in 2014 in Ukraine

HELSINKI — Prosecutors in Finland filed charges Thursday over alleged war crimes in 2014 by a combatant who fought against Ukrainian forces in a Russian-backed separatist region of Ukraine.

The National Prosecution Authority did not identify the suspect when announcing the five charges in a statement, but Finnish media outlets have identified him as Russian national Yan Petrovsky, who had been living in Finland under the alias Voislav Torden. The suspect has denied involvement in the crimes.

“The charges are related to the suspect’s activities in a unit called Rusich, which has fought on the side of the Russian-backed Luhansk separatist region against Ukraine,” the Finnish prosecutors said.

Petrovsky, 37, was arrested in July 2023 at Helsinki Airport as he was headed for Nice in southern France with his family. Finnish media outlets said Petrovsky had managed to enter Finland despite a EU-wide entry ban with the help of a new identity and his wife’s student status in the Nordic country.

The suspect is "accused of having participated, as the unit’s deputy commander, in acts that violate the laws of war, in which he and the unit’s soldiers have killed a total of 22 Ukrainian soldiers and seriously wounded four," prosecutors said.

They added that the suspect is accused of “acts contrary to the laws of war regarding the way of warfare and the treatment of wounded and killed enemy soldiers."

Finland’s Supreme Court has earlier ruled that Petrovsky cannot be extradited to Ukraine, where he faces an arrest warrant, due to the risk of inhumane prison conditions there. Finnish prosecutors said Thursday that the Nordic country has an obligation to try him.

The prosecutors said more information would be made public once the case is taken up in Helsinki District Court, unless the court decides otherwise. The trial of Petrovsky is expected to start on Dec. 5 and last until the end of January 2025.

The investigation into the suspect, who earlier resided in Norway, was conducted by Finland's National Bureau of Investigation, or NBI, and the police agency said earlier this month that it had exchanged information with Ukrainian and European officials as well as the International Criminal Court.

Petrovsky has been on the European Union’s sanctions list against Russia for allegedly being a founding member of the far-right paramilitary group Rusich, which is suspected of terrorism crimes in Ukraine and is connected with Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group,

In March 2014, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Then, separatist forces backed by Moscow began an uprising in the eastern Ukraine region known as the Donbas, which grew into a long-running conflict, leaving thousands of dead.

In February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his war against Ukraine that continues to this day, with tens of thousands of deaths on both sides.

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Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen contributed.