Third birthday in captivity. Russia is being demanded to release human rights defender Maksym Butkevych

This is the third time in a row that he has spent this day in a Russian prison.

A number of human rights organisations in and outside Ukraine, as well as Butkevich's friends and family, are calling on the international community to step up action for his immediate release. Socportal recorded an interview with Maksym's parents in 2022.

Maksym Butkevich is a well-known Ukrainian human rights defender and journalist. In March 2022, he voluntarily joined the AFU. In the summer of the same year, he was captured by the Russian army in Luhansk region. A Russian court “awarded” him 13 years in prison on trumped-up charges. Butkevich said that the case was built on testimony that the investigation had obtained under duress.

Self-discussion was predetermined... On the one hand, I was told that if I agreed, then after the conviction I would be changed in a short time to a convicted prisoner of war of the RF Armed Forces. As other arguments, it was explained to me that if I refused, I would be subjected to various methods of physical influence. Some of them were demonstrated to me, Butkevych told the judges.

Maksym has been an active human rights activist opposing discrimination for more than twenty years. He is the co-founder and coordinator of the project "Without Borders", which helps asylum seekers and refugees in Ukraine. He has worked for UNHCR in Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus, and was the founder of the ZMINA Human Rights Centre and Public Radio. Butkevich was a visiting lecturer at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and a board member of Amnesty International Ukraine.