Border guards in Finland detain "Rusych" group leader after court decision not to extradite him to Ukraine: what happens next

The Finnish Border Guard detained Russian war criminal Voislav Torden (Yan Petrovskyi), the founder of the Rusich sabotage and assault reconnaissance group, who was banned from extradition to Ukraine by the country's Supreme Court. He is likely to be expelled from Finland.

This was reported by Ilta-Sanomat."The border guard took Torden right out of the prison and took him to his car," said a Finnish journalist who observed the situation at the gates of Vantaa prison.

Several border guard cars were parked in front of the facility. Heikki Lampela, a Finnish human rights activist from Torden, also arrived at the gate. The lawyer entered the prison, then came out and started talking about something with the border guards.

Lampela had previously stated that the news of Torden's release was "a surprise and a relief".

The court ordered the release of the former head of the Rusych State Security Group on December 8. According to the judges, the criminal cannot be extradited. They say that he could end up in prison in Ukraine, "which would not meet the requirements of humane treatment under the European Convention on Human Rights."

In Ukraine, a Russian neo-Nazi who openly bragged about killing and torturing captured Ukrainian soldiers may allegedly face "a threat to human dignity."

Since it is impossible to extradite the man, the court ruled to release him from custody.

Background: Yan Petrovskyi was born in 1987 in St. Petersburg, but moved with his mother to Norway as a child. There, he joined the neo-Nazi anti-migrant group "Soldiers of Odin", despite being a migrant himself.

When Russia launched its military aggression against Ukraine in Donbas, the neo-Nazi fought on the Kremlin's side as part of the "Batman" unit, and later founded the Rusich criminal group together with his St. Petersburg "colleague" Oleksii Milchakov.

The neo-Nazi often filmed their numerous crimes, including the torture and murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Petrovskyi-Torden was detained on July 20 at a checkpoint at the Helsinki airport on suspicion of violating immigration laws.

As OBOZ.UA previously reported, Finland has decided to temporarily close the last operating checkpoint on the border with Russia due to the Kremlin's attempts to create an artificial migration crisis. As a result, the country was completely "fenced off" from Russia for two weeks.

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