Military serviceman and human rights advocate Maksym Butkevych released from captivity

On October 18, it became known that Maksym Butkevych, military serviceman, human rights advocate, co-founder of Human Rights Centre ZMINA and Hromadske Radio, was released from the Russian captivity among 95 Ukrainians within the exchange of prisoners.

According to the information that came from Maksym’s father Oleksandr Butkevych, Maksym is already on the territory of Ukraine. As informed by the Institute of Mass Information, he is the second Ukrainian journalist released from the Russian captivity in 2024. Overall, 95 defenders of Ukraine, including 28 military servicepeople illegally sentenced by Russians to lengthy prison terms and 20 more given life sentences were brought home on October 18. Among them there were 34 servicepeople of the Azov regiment.

We will remind you that Maksym Butkevych has been defending Ukraine from the Russian occupiers within the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine since March 2022. He was captured by the Russian occupiers in June 2022. It happened near Zolote and Hirske in the Luhansk region.

On March 10, 2023, the so-called ‘courts’ in the temporarily Russian-occupied parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions ‘sentenced’ Maksym Butkevych to 13 years in prison. The occupiers charged him with ‘ill-treatment of civilian population’ and ‘using banned methods of warfare in the armed conflict’.