Finland’s top court has barred the extradition of a Russian neo-Nazi paramilitary group leader who had fought in Ukraine, citing the risk he could be mistreated in Ukrainian custody.
Jan Petrovsky, head of the Rusich group and subject to western sanctions, was arrested in Finland this summer and Kyiv had sought his extradition on terrorism charges. But Finland’s supreme court on Friday said he could not be handed over to Ukraine as he could face degrading treatment there.
Petrovsky was arrested at Lappeenranta airport, close to the border with Russia, in July as he was about to board a flight to Nice in France. He used an alias, Voislav Torden, at the time of his arrest, because he was already subject to a travel ban in the EU.
The US in September 2022 included Petrovsky on its Russia-related sanctions list for showing “special cruelty” in battles in the eastern Ukrainian Kharkiv region after Russia’s full-scale invasion. The UK and Canada had also put Petrovsky on their sanctions lists for fighting in eastern Ukraine.
The UK also ordered his assets be frozen, reasoning that he had been “involved in destabilising . . . undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty or independence of Ukraine”.
Courts across Europe, including in Germany, have stopped extraditions to Ukraine over fears that suspects could be exposed to inhuman or degrading treatment or torture, which is banned under the European Convention of Human Rights.
Ukraine’s prosecutor-general Andriy Kostin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But Finland’s decision was met with disappointment in Ukraine, where some believed that the crimes with which Petrovsky was charged may have negatively influenced the outcome.
“Unfortunately, many such episodes occur due to the incorrect qualification of crimes committed as a result of Russian aggression [and] lack of timely collected evidence,” said Gyunduz Mamedov, a former deputy prosecutor-general of Ukraine who served from 2019 to 2021, and was focused on building war crimes cases against Russia. “This is a signal that we have work to do. And we must do so to ensure that those responsible, including for war crimes, receive fair punishment.”
Ukrainian authorities have charged Petrovsky with terrorism and sought his arrest since 2014, when he fought with Rusich, a neo-Nazi sabotage and assault reconnaissance group. He had also been affiliated with other Russian paramilitary forces in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region during President Vladimir Putin’s covert invasion that the Kremlin disguised as a “separatist uprising”.
A photograph of Petrovsky holding a large gun and standing beside the burning body of a Ukrainian soldier and military vehicle in flames after a battle in the village of Metalist, Luhansk region, made him notorious in Ukraine.
Tall with long hair and a short beard, he is heavily tattooed with far-right symbols. Born in the Siberian city of Irkustk in 1987, Petrovsky later moved with his mother to St Petersburg and then Norway. He returned to Russia as an adult and soon became a co-leader of Rusich, which was founded in St Petersburg and was closely affiliated with the Wagner group led by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The court ruling comes as tensions between Helsinki and Moscow have increased over a wave of asylum seekers from Middle Eastern and African countries crossing the Russian border into Finland. Elina Valtonen, Finland’s foreign minister, told the Financial Times that the government was worried that Russia could smuggle in war criminals or soldiers into her country.
