Human rights activist Maksym Butkevych released from Russian captivity
19 October 2024 00:33
Human rights activist, journalist, public figure and military officer Maksym Butkevych has been released from Russian captivity. This was reported by his father, Oleksandr Butkevych, in a commentary to the ZMINA Human Rights Centre, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports
Oleksandr Butkevich said that he had received a call from the Coordination Headquarters and was informed that his son had been exchanged as part of a prisoner of war exchange. Maxim Butkevich is on the territory of Ukraine.
Instead, in the evening, the Russian side announced the exchange of 95 of its soldiers for 95 Ukrainian soldiers who were held in Russian captivity.
The exchange was mediated by the UAE.
The human rights activist, who joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, was taken prisoner and convicted in March 2023. The court found him guilty of firing a grenade launcher at a residential building in Sievierodonetsk, Luhansk region. At the same time, Russian propaganda also released a series of stories calling Butkevich a “propagandist”, “Nazi” and “platoon commander of a punitive detachment”.
Graty reported that Butkevych was in Kyiv at the time of the shelling, and arrived in the war zone only 10 days later.
During the review of his case in the Russian Supreme Court, Butkevich said that he had confessed under the threat of torture. In the end, the court upheld the verdict against the Ukrainian human rights activist and sentenced him to 13 years in prison.
The Ukrainian human rights activist and journalist is a co-founder of Hromadske Radio (2013) and the ZMINA Human Rights Centre. Previously, he worked for the BBC World Service and a number of national TV channels, was a guest lecturer at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy for several years, and was a member of the board of the Ukrainian chapter of Amnesty International and the public council at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Butkevych was also the coordinator and co-founder of the project Without Borders, aimed at helping asylum seekers, Ukrainian IDPs and countering hate speech.
In March 2022, Maksym Butkevych joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
