Finland Jails Russian Nationalist Fighter for Violating Entry Ban

A court in Finland has jailed a Russian nationalist fighter Yan Petrovsky for violating EU sanctions by entering the country under an alias, the Finnish broadcaster Yle reported Tuesday.

Petrovsky was detained in July on separate charges of committing terrorism in Ukraine. Yle reports that he was able to cross the border into Finland in 2022 and 2023 after changing his identity documents to the new name Voislav Torden.

A district court in southern Finland’s Kymmenlaakso region found Petrovsky guilty of willfully violating his entry ban, according to Yle.

He received a suspended prison sentence of 40 days and was fined 80 euros ($85).

Petrovsky’s defense plans to appeal the sentence in a higher court, his lawyer Natalia Malgina told the Russian state-run news agency TASS.

In December, Finland’s Supreme Court refused to extradite Petrovsky to Ukraine to face terrorism charges.

Since 2016, Ukrainian authorities have sought his arrest, accusing him of helping pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine as a member of the far-right group Rusich in 2014-15.

Petrovsky is described as the co-founder of Rusich, which is believed to have fought on the side of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since 2014, as well as alongside Russian troops in Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Rusich members regularly display far-right symbols and have been accused of war crimes in Ukraine.