HELSINKI – A Finnish court was due to rule Friday on a Russian citizen accused of war crimes in Ukraine in 2014, including disfiguring a wounded Ukrainian soldier.
Vojislav Torden, a commander of the Russian neo-Nazi paramilitary group Rusich, was arrested by Finnish police at the Helsinki airport in July 2023.
Aged 38 according to Finnish media, Torden is accused of committing five war crimes in Ukraine in 2014, resulting in the deaths of 22 Ukrainian soldiers, and of seriously wounding four others, according to the charge sheet seen by AFP.
Other charges relate in particular to the barbaric methods employed by him and his fighters on this occasion.
Formerly known as Yan Petrovsky, he denied any involvement during his trial that began in December 2024.
“I didn’t fire a single shot,” he told the Helsinki district court, Finnish public broadcaster YLE reported from the trial.
He risks life in prison if convicted.
On September 5, 2014, Rusich forces ambushed a convoy of two vehicles, a truck and a car, carrying Ukrainian soldiers.
The surprise attack took place on the road between Luhansk and Shchastia, behind the positions of Ukrainian forces, in the village of Tsvitni Pisky, at a checkpoint that had previously been used by Ukrainian forces.