"They made an antipode out of him." Interview with parents of human rights activist and anti-fascist Maksym Butkevych, who was taken prisoner by Russian occupants

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Interview with the parents of a POW human rights activist who joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine
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Credit: Anastasiya Moskvychova, Radio Svoboda
20:20, 23.08.2022

The parents of Ukrainian human rights activist Maksym Butkevych spoke about his captivity.



In June, well-known Ukrainian journalist and human rights activist Maksym Butkevych was captured near Severodonetsk. Russian propagandists immediately singled him out among the rest of the prisoners, recorded a separate video with him with interrogation, and in several publications called him "a big catch, a propagandist and a Nazi platoon commander." And this is even though Maksym helped refugees in Ukraine the lion's share of his life and fought against the use of hate speech. Maksym's parents did not disclose that he was captured for the first two weeks. However, later they decided that only publicity could resist the Russian propaganda fakes and help the dismissal. They actively interact with the Ukrainian and foreign media and are now on a visit to Germany.

At that moment, the Russian media published a video in which Maksym was identified among other Ukrainian captives. After two months, his family finally found out that he is alive.

Socportal talked to Maksym Butkevych's parents, Yevhenia and Oleksandr, a few days before the new video appeared and asked for a comment after this news.

Socportal: How did you react to the appearance of a new video with your son?

Yevhenia: Yesterday (21 august, ed.), the second story about our Ukrainian prisoners of war appeared on Russian television, in RIA Novosti. The first is the one we saw on June 24 when they were taken, prisoner. And only yesterday we saw Maksym again. It was a story about a meeting of a representative of the UN PEC on human rights with our prisoners of war, accompanied by the commissioner for human rights of the so-called "LPR".

We saw Maksym. Our feelings were very different.

First, we were just happy that we saw him, that he was alive. And now we know that he is in the Luhansk region. It's been two months of searching, and yesterday we finally got to know him. Secondly, we looked at him; it hurt because he seemed exhausted. He has lost weight, with dark bruises under his eyes. We saw that all the guys sitting in that room were lightly dressed; they had slippers on their feet. And he was shod in some shoes, it seems that they were powdered with some "construction" dust. If you look closely, it appears he was brought from somewhere and planted next to them. It was just as hard for me as a mother to look at him yesterday as it was hard on June 24th. But now we have hope. We now turn to this commissioner, who once replied to an appeal from a relative from Russia that she knew nothing about Maksym.

Now she could no longer answer because she was in the room next to him. That is why we have hope. And this is because the representative of the UN PEC on human rights came to them, and the Russians decided to show him that they really, really care about prisoners of war (although they did not ratify the Geneva Convention on them) and made an appropriate story and showed it on television and posted it in public space.

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Socportal: Everyone who knows Maksym notes that he is a very good, diplomatic, tactful person. An idealist, a person with anarchist views, is very interesting. What do you think made him such a person?

Oleksandr: Since his school age, Maksym's life has been dominated by human rights activities. A person has had a sense of freedom and dignity since childhood. Where is it from? He was born like this. I took something from my parents, the older generation. But in many ways from the environment, friends. The time he was born also seems to have had an impact. And as for his romantic anarchist views, this also focuses on human rights and freedom. Anarchist ideology is self-government, free people who determine their destiny.

Socportal: Can you please tell us what Maksym did? What topics did you raise as a journalist? To whom did you work as a human rights activist?

Yevheniya:

Maksym began to fight for the rights of people at the age of 13.

In 1990, the "Granite Revolution" occurred when our students took to the Maidan, demanding the government's resignation. Maksym was then in the 6th grade, and he and his friends came to the Maidan to participate in this process. They were told - you are still small, study. But he spoke from the Maidan stage with a microphone. There is a photograph - of a little blond boy who says they created a strike committee in their class.

Maksym Butkevych in 1990
Maksym Butkevych in 1990

And they went to this Maidan, even though they were told that they were still children. This manifests his intentions about what he will do in his life. We were amazed, to be honest. But it was such a period - the 1990s, rallies, meetings all over Ukraine, how should we arrange ourselves as a country, new opportunities. And here are these guys. I believe he was born that way. In our family, I don't see any reason for a 13-year-old child to behave this way. We worked, and each of us did our own thing. I'm in the library; his father is a scientist. There was nothing in his family connected with politics, some movements. But he became interested in these things very early. We thought it would outgrow. Didn't outgrow.

Moreover, at the age of 16, he entered the university. And they created a student trade union at the Faculty of Philosophy called "Pryama Diya" (Direct Action). It still exists, although several decades have passed. They participated in all events that took place in the center of Kyiv. There was such a struggle; everything was in full swing. And all this was the beginning of his activity as a person who is very concerned with the topic of freedom. Then, when he matured, the theme of human rights was added. After the Faculty of Philosophy, he went to television and became an international journalist. But he was mainly interested in events in different parts of the world related to when people go out into the streets so that their rights are protected. He was called "young Timorese" because such events took place in East Timor. And even while working as a journalist, he still tried to deal with his human rights issues. Then he went to work for BBC, worked for three years. He studied an MA in Applied Anthropology at Sussex, graduating in 2006.

And then, the Orange Revolution happened in 2004. Maksym came on vacation and went to the Maidan. We all went to the Maidan on New Year's Eve to celebrate. And when he saw all this, I think he decided that he was returning and would not stay in England. Andrii Kulikov (famous Ukrainian journalist, TV and radio host, ed.) also returned.

They created "Hromadske radio" (Public radio). Then he worked a little more on television, gave up journalism, and took up purely human rights activities. Together with friends, they created the human rights project "Bez kordoniv" (Without Borders). It still exists.

The motto of their project is "No human is illegal."

Maksym Butkevych. Credit: Bez kordoniv
Maksym Butkevych. Credit: Bez kordoniv

They were mainly engaged in protecting the rights of refugees, asking for asylum in Ukraine. At first, they were predominantly refugees in Central and East Asia. The motives were religious - oppression based on religious beliefs. Then the refugees from Ros were added as Putin's regime became increasingly violent. And there were a lot of refugees from Russia because they were thrown into prisons there, and there were repressions. The fate of these people very accepted both Maksym and his project. Then refugees from Belarus were added two years ago. And in 2014, when the war began in Ukraine, they helped a lot in March-April the Crimeans who fled to mainland Ukraine from the Russian military. Then to refugees from Donbas. He was looking for housing and collecting money. He even had a family from the Luhansk region for two years. A young artist, his wife, and an eight-year-old boy. This artist was pro-Ukrainian; he went to rallies; they broke his head there and threw him into the basement. But friends helped to get out and transport the family to Kyiv. The guy was admitted to the Institute of Neurosurgery and treated for a long time. And when he had to leave the hospital, Maksym began to look for housing, and everything was already taken. Everyone who could have already given away their apartments and dachas. And he took them with him. They lived with him for two years.

But far from the media, he did not leave. He was also a media coach. He was invited to seminars and training. During the last years of the war, he was apprehensive about the topic of discord speech. He devoted a lot of time to this and met with young journalists and students of the journalism departments. He was also invited with this topic to other states, the former republics of the Soviet Union, in which everything is also restless. And the issue of hate speech was also not indifferent to them. He was invited, and he also visited them quite often. He explained that: "although you have emotions, you are journalists, and you want to write like that, but you can’t. The profession's standard always requires that you remember that your every word will resonate with readers, listeners, and viewers. And the consequences of such work, careless handling of the word, can be very difficult for your country, for your people.”

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Socportal: How did you react to Maksym's decision to join the army? Did a conversation with you precede it?

Yevhenia: When we woke up on February 24 at 6 am and started reading the news, at first, we simply did not believe what we saw there. But they realized that the war had begun, already a hot stage.

They called Maksym on the phone; we said that the war had begun. In the evening, he called us and said he was in the military enlistment office.

He is a reserve lieutenant because the university has a military department. He was told to pack an alarming case and wait. And until March 4, he was still minding his own business, finishing what needed. He posted a post on Facebook that “friends, colleagues, I am temporarily suspending my activities as a human rights activist because I realized that if we do not win this war, then everything that we have been doing for the past 10, 15, 20 years will be of no use to anyone. Because Russia definitely does not need human rights and everything we do with you. Therefore, you and I have the only way out - to protect the cause of our life. Something we've been working on all our adult lives. No one else but us. Therefore, I go to protect, and when we win, I will return to human rights activities.” He did not consult with us. Only because he knew that we think like him, it's just that if we were younger, we would go. But we can no longer; we have been for many years. And he can

Socportal: How was Maksym's service?

Oleksandr:

210 Battalion "Berlingo." This information is already public knowledge. Different people, mostly volunteers, created the battalion.

For three months, they had to undergo training at the base and grounds. But there were corresponding consequences due to the limitation of resources, motor resources, and ammunition. During these three months, they also went through the dismissal of Bucha, Kyiv region. For nine days, they closed some sections. As we later found out, when we met with my son (we had such an opportunity once), he said that “they poured us well during these nine days.” They fired at them from different weapons - artillery and mortars. And they closed this area. After these nine days, they were again taken to the base for rotation. Then they went a couple of times for training with personnel and equipment. But there were not many such cases. I concluded that, unfortunately, it was a battalion that was formed at the last moment after the aggression. Volunteers provided them. The radios did not have time to offer them. Therefore, when they got to the "zero," they had no connection with the command. Communication was only because of the walkie-talkie of scouts. When there was his last message, I said: “Son, I understand that you are now passing through places where there is no cellular communication everywhere. And the silence regime - you can’t go on air somewhere. There will be an opportunity to “hook” the network; just let them know everything is fine. And we will know that you are alive and well. And the last message that everything was fine was from him on June 18th. And then my mother found out that on June 19, he told some of his friends, buddies, or volunteers that they were going to “zero.” This is the first line of collision, where there is no one and nothing. It was the Luhansk region, the area of ​​Severodonetsk. Between Hirske and Zolote, there is a settlement called Myrna Dolyna. We learned this later. There they were. If we continue to roll over, this is our only information. Then on the 24th, we were sent a link to the video of the interrogation, which Public Television borrowed from RIA Novosti, which the Russians put up. From there, they already knew the details of how it all happened.

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Maksym, on the video (interrogation after he was captured in June, ed.), said they were taken to an observation position by two scouts. As I understand it, they were the last ones to cover the exit. They communicated radio with two scouts who took them to an observation position. There was no communication with the command. By then, they had already been without water for more than a day, and without food for much more time, they were exhausted. They were noticed and began to be intensively shelled from mortars, and this shelling continued all night without interruption. In the morning, they realized that they still needed to look for water because they would not be able to live without water for a long time. He decided to send several fighters in search of water. But at that time, enemy armored vehicles entered the neighboring forest belt; the side letters were "O." The search for water had disappeared because the enemy was already here, and mortar shelling was underway. At that moment, a message was received from one of the scouts who led them to this position that the encirclement ring was rapidly narrowing, and it was necessary to leave the encirclement. And he gave them the coordinates where he would meet them. He said to leave everything heavy that they cannot carry with them. They went in the direction of the specified coordinates. As we learned later, one of the relatives of the platoon soldiers was informed by the unit's deputy commander that they had traveled 29 kilometers under the scorching sun to this point of meeting with the reconnaissance officer. And when they had already approached the meeting point (and this point was in front of the forest mogul, they were still in the field), the scout told them by radio that they were all under gunpoint and if they didn’t lay down their arms now, they would be shot, and he (the scout) himself is in captivity. That is, they fell into a prepared ambush. The son says (in the video of the interrogation - ed.) that they were in full view and did not even have the opportunity to engage in battle because the enemy was not visible; he was disguised and ready to open fire.

After conferring, they decided to lay down their arms to save people.

From the first day, messages appeared in the Russian information space, in public, and in the media, which I roughly quote: “A big catch. A well-known Ukrainian propagandist was taken prisoner, and the commander of a platoon of a punitive detachment of Ukrainian Nazi punishers was captured. Fascists-Nazis” and so on. It did not subside; this degree was maintained. There was a continuation in the “will we now allow them to exchange” or “can they avoid the deserved punishment.” Vitalii Kiselyov, “Assistant to the Minister of Internal Affairs” of the so-called "LPR", published a video with Ukrainian prisoners: “Oops! - among the surrendered militants, a venerable Kyiv propagandist, a grant-eater Maksym Butkevych, a “human rights activist” who incited hatred for Russians on the Soros sites “Public Radio” and “Public Television,” coordinator of the “Without Borders” project, ex-co-coordinator of the “Committee,” ex-official Representative Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees And so we finally caught him.” They wrote that he was "pretending to be a human rights activist" they wrote various nonsense. An image of its antipode was created from it. You involuntarily recall Orwell's "1984". Here the Russian propaganda machine looks like the Ministry of Truth. It seems that it was a desktop reader from which they learned to lie. But they have surpassed their teachers because something more cynical and deceitful is challenging to come up with.

We kept quiet. Friends, human rights activists, and journalists from Ukraine from other countries called us on the phone, asking: “Why are you silent?”.

Maksym saved several hundred people in his entire life while engaged in human rights activities. It was initially in Central Asia, where people with religious beliefs were threatened with death or long-term imprisonment. Further, many victims of the Putin regime sought asylum in Ukraine. For the last two years - from Belarus. We understand that he was in the FSB and the Belarusian KGB database for a long time.

This is a person who is very inconvenient for the dictatorial regime of Russia. And, of course, they were glad that such a "large catch" was caught.

It seemed that they began to position him not as a prisoner of war but tried to separate him from among prisoners of war to fabricate a “hard” case, accusing him of something like terrorism, an attempt on the state system of Kazakhstan, and so on. Moreover, from 2003-2006 he was still in the UK, worked for BBC, and simultaneously graduated from the University of Sussex; it began to appear publicly that he was also a “British spy.”


We maintained a silence regime for two weeks, and this continued. His friends and acquaintances from Russia sent us information. And they said: “Why are you silent? Here we have such accusations being rolled out.”

And we, after two weeks, adhered to the recommendation of silence, nevertheless turned to our bodies. I outlined my argumentation and my vision that “public opinion” is being prepared to make some judgment. Show trial. They only said to me, "We heard you."

After this answer, I realized that to remain silent further is just silently indulging the Russians' lies and endangering my son's life.

We decided to end the moratorium on publicity and say who our son is. This is the only thing we could do by opposing the truth to the blatant lies of the Russians, which common sense does not perceive. This is the only way we can somehow neutralize Russian lies. They will no longer convince the world with their insinuations—the more people who know the truth, the greater the chance. Sentsov (director Oleh Sentsov was arrested for political reasons in Crimea after the annexation of the peninsula by Russia. He was fired in 2019 during the exchange, - ed.) said that only publicity saved him from the first days. And not only him. Others also testified that they remained alive thanks to what became known.

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Maria Grynevych

Maria Grynevych, project manager, journalist, co-author of Guidebook Sacred Mountains of the Dnieper Region, Lecture Course: Cult Topography of the Middle Dnieper Region.