By Anne Kauranen
HELSINKI (Reuters) - A Russian man went on trial in Finland on Thursday on charges of committing war crimes while commanding a far-right paramilitary unit in eastern Ukraine a decade ago.
The trial of Yan Petrovsky is a rare attempt by prosecutors outside Ukraine to seek justice for victims of alleged war crimes in a conflict that began long before Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
On the first day of hearings at Helsinki district court, the Finnish prosecutor demanded life imprisonment for Petrovsky, who is also known as Voislav Torden.
Petrovsky, who was born in 1987, faces five charges of committing war crimes in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015, court documents seen by Reuters show.
Petrovsky, who has been under European Union and U.S. sanctions since 2022, denies all the charges, his lawyer Heikki Lampela told the court.
Petrovsky was detained in Finland at Ukraine's request in 2023 as he tried to travel to France under a false identity. Finland's supreme court later blocked his extradition to Ukraine.
The charges against Petrovsky relate to his activities in Rusich, a paramilitary subunit affiliated to the Wagner mercenary group that fought against Ukraine on the side of Russia-backed separatists in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine in 2014, the prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Deputy Prosecutor General Jukka Rappe accuses Petrovsky of co-commanding a group of Rusich fighters who ambushed a group of Ukrainian soldiers after deceiving them by raising a Ukrainian flag at a road block on Sept. 5, 2014, killing 22 and seriously wounding four.
Rappe argues that the deception involved in the ambush and allegations that wounded soldiers were executed, that one was mutilated and that the degradation of a body was shown in photographs and video footage constitute war crimes under the Rome Statute and the Geneva Conventions.
In an interview with Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat before the trial, a plaintiff who is the father of the soldier whom Petrovsky's unit is accused of mutilating, called for justice for his son.
Rusich's symbol was slashed on the cheek of the plaintiff's son while he was still alive, according to the charges.
"Evil must be punished. I want this spread of evil to be stopped," Vasil Isyk, the dead man's father, told the daily.
Hearings in the case are slated to continue until the end of January, with witnesses and plaintiffs in Ukraine to be heard remotely, the court documents show.