On July 20, 2023, at Helsinki Airport, a Russian citizen named Yan Petrovsky was detained for a "violation of migration legislation" just before his flight to Nice. Ukraine is currently seeking Yan Petrovsky on charges related to "crimes committed in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014-2015." The extradition procedure for him began on August 25. He has been under sanctions by the EU and the USA since 2022.
Who is Yan Petrovsky, and what is the backstory of his arrest? Yan Petrovsky, born in 1987, is originally from Irkutsk. In 2004, he left Russia with his mother, who married a Norwegian. In October 2016, the Norwegian government decided to revoke his residence permit and deport him to Russia with a ban on entering all Schengen countries. In Russia, Petrovsky changed his name and surname to Voislav Torden. In 2023, his wife received permission to study in Finland, and as a family member of a student, he was granted entry and residency in the country.
What are the specific crimes in question? In the spring of 2014, when the armed conflict began in Eastern Ukraine, Petrovsky decided to join pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region. According to him, he went to defend Russian people on Ukrainian territory, which he considered the pinnacle of honor and dignity for any Russian warrior. Together with Alexey Milchakov and other like-minded individuals, they purchased military equipment and, as part of a humanitarian convoy, traveled from St. Petersburg to Ukraine, where they formed a sabotage-reconnaissance group called "Rusich." The SRG "Rusich," part of Alexander Bednov's battalion "Batman," consisted of nationalists from St. Petersburg, Moscow, and other Russian cities. The Russian Norwegian himself became the deputy commander of the group. Along with his fighters, he participated in combat operations at Donetsk and Luhansk airports, cleared settlements near Luhansk, and engaged in positional battles near the villages of Belokamenka and Novolasp in the Donetsk region. One of the most famous combat operations of "Rusich" was the destruction of a column of the Ukrainian "Aidar" battalion near the village of Metallist in the Luhansk region on September 5, 2014. Photos of Petrovsky posing against the backdrop of dead Ukrainian soldiers quickly spread on the internet.
In November 2016, the International Criminal Court completed a preliminary investigation into events in Crimea and Ukraine since November 2013. Among the evidence was a report accusing members of the "Rusich" group of war crimes. On November 21, 2016, a pre-trial investigation against Milchakov and Petrovsky began at the military prosecutor's office of Ukraine, charging them with participation in a terrorist organization. Extraditing Petrovsky from Finland to Ukraine for a fair trial and the imposition of deserved punishment will be a clear manifestation of justice, further uniting democratic society. Kiev calls on the Finnish authorities not to miss this opportunity and to extradite Petrovsky to Ukraine.
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