Finland refuses Ukraine to extradite leader of neo-Nazi group Rusych Yan Petrovsky

The Supreme Court of Finland refused to extradite to Ukraine one of the leaders of the russian neo-Nazi subversive-assault intelligence group Rusych Yan Petrovsky (Voyislav Torden) and decided to release him, Helsingin Sanomat reports.

Ukraine accuses 36-year-old Petrovsky, known by the nickname Sloviyan, of crimes committed in the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions in 2014-2015. Petrovsky was detained on July 20, 2022, at the Helsinki airport before his flight to Nice, after which the Ukrainian authorities sent a request to the Finnish side for his extradition.

The Finnish court cited the conditions of detention in Ukrainian prisons, which the European Court of Human Rights recognized as violating Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as the reason for the refusal. According to the court, in the case of extradition of Yan Petrovsky to Ukraine, he may be subjected to degrading treatment.

The neo-Nazi group Rusych took part in the war in Donbas in 2014-2015.

Petrovsky left for Norway in 2004, when he was 16 years old, together with his mother, who married a Norwegian citizen. In 2016, Petrovsky was deported from Norway to russia, where he changed his name to Voyislav Torden. Until 2023, his wife received permission to study in Finland, and he, as a member of the student's family, was also allowed to enter the country and given a residence permit.

Rusych fighters are also participating in russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In September 2022, U.S. sanctions were imposed on the group and its leaders, Milchakov and Petrovsky, for the "special cruelty" they showed during the fighting in the Kharkiv Region last year. According to the U.S. Department of Treasury, during the first battle near Kharkiv in 2022, Milchakov was wounded, after which Petrovsky assumed the position of commander.