Ukrainian human rights activist Maksym Butkevych sent to penal colony in Luhansk Oblast
Maksym Butkevych, a Ukrainian serviceman and human rights activist, is now in a penal colony in the settlement of Krasnyi Luch in Russian-occupied Luhansk Oblast.
Source: Graty, a Ukrainian outlet focused on the rights of political prisoners, citing lawyer Leonid Soloviov, who received a response from the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service to a request about Butkevych's whereabouts
Details: Butkevych, who fought in Ukraine’s east alongside the Armed Forces, was captured by Russian forces in Luhansk in summer 2022. He was forced to plead guilty to supposedly firing a grenade launcher at a residential building in Sieverodonetsk.
A so-called "court" of the non-recognised "Luhansk People's Republic" sentenced Butkevych to 13 years’ imprisonment. A Moscow court upheld the sentence against the Ukrainian human rights defender in August 2023. After that, Maksym Butkevych disappeared.
Background:
- Neither Butkevych’s lawyer nor his parents had known anything about his whereabouts since the end of August 2023.
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