Helsinki court reduces sentence for Russian ex-Rusich member
An appeals court in Helsinki reduced Russian citizen Voislav Torden's sentence from life imprisonment to 12.5 years after finding him guilty of three war crimes linked to a September 2014 ambush in eastern Ukraine. A lower district court in March 2025 had sentenced him to life, saying he was a member of the neo-Nazi Rusich unit that used a Ukrainian flag to lure soldiers and opened fire, causing 22 deaths. The appeals court said there was insufficient evidence he shot wounded soldiers or ordered their killing, but concluded he participated in the ambush and had some involvement in subsequent killings. Finland tried him after extradition to Ukraine was blocked.
Appeals court reduced Torden's sentence to 12.5 years for war crimes.
Context
Torden entered Finland from Russia in 2023 and was detained after authorities found his former name on an EU sanctions list. The Finnish Supreme Court barred extradition to Ukraine over prison and fair trial concerns. The district court…
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