Finnish appeals court sentences Russian Rusich militant to 12.5 years for war crimes in Ukraine

The Helsinki Court of Appeal found Torden guilty of three war crimes, Finnish public broadcaster Yle reported. A lower court had convicted him of four war crimes and sentenced him to life imprisonment in March 2025.

The case centered on a Sept. 5, 2014 ambush in Luhansk Oblast involving the Russian paramilitary group Rusich, in which 22 Ukrainian soldiers from the Aidar Battalion were killed and four were wounded.

The appeals court found that Torden served as Rusich's deputy commander and fired a light machine gun toward Ukrainian soldiers during the ambush, constituting a war crime. It also found him partly responsible for the soldiers being killed and wounded through his participation in the joint attack.

However, the court said there was insufficient evidence that Torden himself or two other Rusich members had shot wounded Ukrainian soldiers. It also ruled that Torden did not bear command responsibility for the shooting of the wounded and dismissed that part of the case.

The court upheld convictions related to Torden taking and distributing a photograph of a Rusich commander posing in front of the badly burned body of a dead Ukrainian soldier, as well as statements Torden made online that Rusich did not take prisoners or show mercy.

The appeals court also dismissed a charge concerning a Rusich symbol that had been cut into a Ukrainian soldier's cheek with a sharp object. Based on the evidence, the court found that the wound was superficial, did not bleed and caused insufficient physical or mental suffering to meet the legal threshold for the war-crime charge.

In determining the sentence, the court considered international sentencing practices for war crimes, Torden's participation in the ambush, his position as Rusich's deputy commander and the use of his actions to create and distribute war propaganda.

The court also ordered Torden to pay compensation to soldiers wounded in the ambush and relatives of those killed.

Torden was arrested in Finland in 2023. Ukraine sought his extradition, but Finland's Supreme Court rejected the request, citing prison conditions in Ukraine. Finnish authorities subsequently prosecuted him in Finland for crimes committed in Ukraine.

Torden has denied committing war crimes and denied serving as Rusich's deputy commander.