In 2023, an illegal VOT court sentenced a human rights activist and a military man to 13 years in prison for allegedly injuring two women while in Severodonetsk by firing a grenade launcher at the entrance of a residential building.
Human rights activist, journalist, public figure and military man Maxim Butkevich has been released from Russian captivity. His father, Alexander Butkevich, announced this on Friday, October 18, in a comment to the ZMINA Human Rights Center.
As the man said, the Coordination Headquarters called him on the phone and said that his son was released during the exchange of prisoners of war, and that he was on the territory of Ukraine.
In the evening, the Russian side announced the exchange of 95 of its soldiers for 95 Ukrainian soldiers held captive by Russia.
The human rights activist, who joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine after Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine, was caught and convicted in March 2023. The court found him guilty of firing a grenade launcher at a residential building in Severodonetsk, Lugansk region. At the same time, Russian propaganda released several stories in which they called Butkevich a “propagandist,” “Nazi,” and “platoon commander of a punitive detachment.”
The Hrati publication reported that Butkevich was in Kyiv at the time of the shelling, and arrived in the combat zone 10 days later.
During the review of his case in the Supreme Court of Russia, Butkevich said that he pleaded guilty under the threat of torture. In the end, the court left the sentence of the Ukrainian human rights activist unchanged – he was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Ukrainian human rights activist and journalist is a co-founder of Public Radio (2013) and the ZMINA human rights center. Previously, he worked for the BBC World Service and a number of all-Ukrainian television channels, for several years he was a guest lecturer at NaUKMA, and also served on the board of the Ukrainian representative office of Amnesty International and the public council under the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Butkevich is also the coordinator and co-founder of the Without Borders project, which aims to help asylum seekers, Ukrainian migrants and counter hate speech.
In March 2022, Maxim Butkevich joined the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
There are 31 Ukrainian journalists in captivity in Russia. This was said by the executive director of the public organization Media Initiative for Human Rights, Tatyana Katrichenko.
During the full-scale war, Ukraine freed 3,135 people from Russian captivity, about one-third of whom were registered as missing.
New Correspondent.net on Telegram and WhatsApp. Subscribe to our channels Athletistic and WhatsApp
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.