The St Petersburg City Court has declared the siege of Leningrad a war crime and Finland a complicit party in its undertaking.
The siege of Leningrad took place between September 1941 and January 1944, which coincided with the Continuation War for Finland. The blockade of the Soviet city is considered one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history.
According to Russian media outlets RBK and Meduza, the court added that the siege of St Petersburg—formerly known as Leningrad— was not only a war crime, but a crime against humanity and a genocide of the Soviet people. The case was filed in the court by Russia's Prosecutor-General Igor Krasnov in September.
The court's ruling specified that the siege of the Soviet city involved "the occupying forces and German troops, their accomplices— armed units formed on the territory of Belgium, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway and Finland, and individual Austrian, Latvian, Polish, French and Czech volunteers".
Russian state news agency TASS reported that the court had heard four people who lived during the siege and 12 experts who had examined top secret material.
According to the prosecutor's office, more than a million people died during the blockade and the damage exceeded 35 trillion roubles in today's money, which is about 600 billion euros.
Finland has repeatedly condemned Russia's current war of aggression in Ukraine and has requested the European Court of Human rights to intervene as a third party in two proceedings between Ukraine and Russia.