Ukrainian human rights defender Maksym Butkevych disappears in Russian captivity

Maksym Butkevych, a Ukrainian human rights activist and former BBC journalist who is serving in Ukraine’s Armed Forces, has disappeared in the Russian penal system.

Source: ВВС News Ukraine

Details: Neither Butkevych’s lawyer nor his parents have known anything about his whereabouts since the end of August 2023. Letters and parcels sent to him at the pre-trial detention centre in temporarily occupied Luhansk have been returned.

Alexander Fedulov, the human rights activist’s lawyer who left Russia because of the threat of persecution, was the only person who was allowed to see Maksym during his detention. Fedulov was one of the group of lawyers of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Butkevych, who fought in the east of Ukraine with the Armed Forces, was captured by Russia in the summer of 2022.

His parents have seen their son only a handful of times in over a year, and only in videos posted by the Russian media. In August 2023, Bytkevych was seen in a photograph taken by Mediazona journalists from an appeal court hearing against Maksym, which was held in Moscow.

Butkevych was in the Luhansk pre-trial detention centre at the time and attended the hearing via video link.

After a so-called "court" of the "Luhansk People's Republic" sentenced the human rights activist to 13 years’ imprisonment in March 2023, Maksym's family and friends hoped for an exchange. Ukrainian prisoners are sometimes exchanged following court rulings. But this did not happen.

In August 2023, the Moscow court upheld the sentence against the Ukrainian human rights defender. After that, Maksym Butkevych disappeared.

BBC reporters are trying to obtain information from the Russian authorities about where Butkevych is now.

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