Russian mercenary sentenced to a life by a Finnish court for war crimes in Ukraine

A Russian citizen has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a Finnish court for committing war crimes in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Voislav Borten, 38, the main member of the Russian Russian Mercenary Group Rusich, was convicted of four positions by a court in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, on Friday, while he was acquitted of a fifth position.

The charges are related to an ambush and shooting that occurred in the Luhansk region of Ukraine, which killed 22 Ukrainian soldiers and wounded another four. Borten denies the accusations.

It is the first time that charges have been submitted and listened to in a Finnish court for accusations of war crimes in Ukraine.

Borten, previously known as Yan Petrovsky, was a founding member of Rusich, who operated in the east region of Donbas as part of the pro-ruse separatist struggles against Ukraine. Rusich is a subunit of the Wagner group.

It was alleged that, on September 5, 2014, Turden led his men as part of an ambush of Ukrainian soldiers when he pretended to be Ukrainians, before setting fire to a truck and a car that belongs to the unit.

Twenty -one Ukrainian troops were killed and five other wounds, according to the accusation.

The Helsinki court found that there was not enough evidence to conclude that Rusich was specifically responsible for the ambush, since there were several other groups involved.

However, he found Burden guilty of all other positions, including that Borden was in charge of the Rusich mercenaries present during the ambush, who killed at least one Ukrainian soldier and wounded another.

It was also discovered that his men had mutilated a wounded soldier by “making the Rusich group symbol on his face.”

It was discovered that Borden had distributed “degrading” images of the soldier and has published on social networks that Rusich “would not grant mercy.”

A panel of three judges found him unanimously guilty of the last four positions, writing that the most serious, to kill a soldier, was “comparable to the murder due to his brutality and cruelty.”

While the court argued that there was not enough evidence to find him guilty for the death of the other 21 Ukrainian soldiers, he ordered him to pay compensation to the soldier’s family for which he was considered responsible.

Borten has constantly denied level accusations against him, reports the public broadcaster of Finland. He intends to appeal the conviction, according to the Neta-Sanomat newspaper.

Torden was arrested at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport in July 2023, at the request of the Ukrainian government, which sought to extradite it.

That request was rejected by the Supreme Court of Finland for concerns that he would not receive a right trial in Ukraine, but he could still be tried in Helsinki, since he was accused of crimes under international law.

The public station of Finland, Yle, informs that similar positions related to the country have been judged in countries such as Rwanda and Iraq.