Oleksandr Boutkevych has not parted with a small stack of papers, hastily covered in green writing, since he and his wife decided to go public with the capture of their son Maksym Boutkevych by Russian forces. The list includes all activities of this well-known human rights activist and journalist from Kyiv. “Every now and then something comes to mind and I add it,” the man explains calmly and gently, before reading it.
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Maksym Boutkevytch, 45 years old on July 16, has distinguished himself in many anti-fascist and anti-racist struggles over the past twenty years. The man is the founder of the Zmina human rights center and co-founder of the independent radio station Hromadske. He was a member of the international board of Amnesty International and worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. From 2006 he was a co-founder and coordinator of the “No Borders” project, which aims to help asylum seekers and migrants in Ukraine.
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Maksym Boutkevych decided to join Ukrainian forces on the evening of February 24, the first day of the invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He explained to his parents that the war was “a threat to the values that he was trying to develop and implement in Ukraine,” according to his father. Eight years earlier, in 2014, when the conflict between Moscow-backed separatists and the Ukrainian army began in the east of the country, this anti-militarist had not committed himself. “He thought he would be more useful if he helped the displaced,” explains Oleksandr Boutkevych.
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The son joined the ranks of the Ukrainian army on March 4. Between his departure and the announcement of the capture of his train by Russian forces in the Luhansk region between 21 and 24 June, Maksym Boutkevych’s parents received very little information. “Usually he would send messages on WhatsApp: ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine.’ The last message is on June 18. »
And then, on June 24, Maksym Boutkevych’s relatives warn his father that the Russian armed forces released a video interrogating him. In the pictures, the ex-human rights activist-turned-soldier explains that the train in which he fought was surrounded by the Russian army during an operation in Luhansk Oblast. All the soldiers, just over a dozen, would have been captured.
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