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The co-leader of Russian neo-Nazi paramilitary group Task Force Rusich has been arrested in Finland, authorities said on Friday.
Yan Igorevich Petrovskiy (referred to in Finnish media as Jan Igorovits Petrovsky) was detained "at the request of Kyiv," Russia's state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported on Friday, citing an unnamed Russian embassy source.
Earlier, Finland's MTV3 channel reported that Petrovskiy, who is subject to European Union and United States sanctions, was in custody, saying that Ukraine has requested his extradition.
Finland joined NATO on April 4, 2025 following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.
Rusich is actively involved in fighting in Ukraine on behalf of the Kremlin, and has links to the notorious paramilitary outfit the Wagner Group, whose chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is presumed dead after his private jet crashed in Russia's Tver region on Wednesday.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Petrovskiy in September 2022, noting in a press release that he had been expelled from Norway in 2016 after being declared a threat to national security. He had lived in Norway since 2004 before he was expelled and stripped of his permanent residency.
The department describes him as the "lead military trainer" of Rusich, which has a long history of fighting alongside Russia-backed proxies in the Donbas region of Ukraine. It notes that Rusich is associated with the Wagner Group.
Petrovskiy was sanctioned for being or having been a leader, official, senior executive officer, or member of the board of directors of Rusich.
MTV3 reported that he is suspected of acts of terror that occurred between June 2014 and August 2015 in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine, during Russian President Vladimir Putin's initial invasion of the country.
The Prosecutor General of Ukraine and the International Criminal Court have been investigating members of Rusich for alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine, independent Latvia-based Russian news outlet Meduza reported in 2017.
In October 2022, a message on Rusich's Telegram channel called for the torture of prisoners of war in Ukraine and the "destruction of prisoners on the spot," the Guardian reported.
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Update 08/25/23 at 8:15 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information, and with an amended spelling of Petrovskiy's name.
About the writer
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more