His body still shows some signs, almost imperceptible, of the ordeal that was twenty-eight months of captivity. We feel a fragility in certain movements. Three times nothing, compared to men returning broken by torture, some locked in silence and nightmares, scarred forever. The most striking thing, apparently, with Maksym Boutkevytch, is on the contrary the liveliness of the spirit, and a sort of quiet strength.
Ukrainian pacifist and anti-militarist activist, committed to the defense of human rights, refugees and migrants, Maksym Boutkevytch joined, as soon as the Russian invasion, a unit of volunteers from kyiv, on 210e special battalion “Berlingo”. After the failure of Russian forces in kyiv, the 210e is sent to Donbass. Lieutenant Boutkevytch, “Moses” by his nom de guerre, and eight men from his platoon were captured on June 18, 2022, near Lyssytchansk.
In the process of being surrounded on an observation post, they were retreating to the rear, guided by radio by the scout who had brought them the day before. Suddenly, as they run across the field, the scout orders them to stop and reveals that he has been captured by the Russian army. He lured them into a trap under threat of execution. Surrounded, in the line of sight of dozens of Russian soldiers, they surrendered their weapons.
Threats of rape and torture
Since their release on October 18 and the revelation of details of their story, commentators have been on fire on Ukrainian social networks to denounce a ” treason “ of the scout, the most severe being, as often, armchair warriors who have never experienced the ordeal of fire. “It’s war… I don’t blame this scout at all, a good guy that I saw again in prison, specifies Maksym Boutkevytch. And, by luring us into this trap, he not only saved his life, but perhaps ours as well. » Without radio contact, in an area they did not know, the fighters would most likely have fallen into an ambush, with no offer of surrender.
Once captive, Maksym Boutkevytch discovers the perverse game of the officers in charge of interrogations, the threats of rape and torture, the attempts to obtain confessions, the documents that must be signed to respect obscure bureaucratic rules, until the 'absurd.
Detained in the occupied province of Luhansk, annexed by Russia in September 2022, he was first a prisoner of war, like all Ukrainian fighters, then, after being sentenced, in March 2023, to thirteen years in prison, by a court, for a “war crime” supposedly committed in Sievierodonetsk, where he was not at the time, he is incarcerated with common criminals. The only constant is the regular visit of hooded men who can only belong to the Russian intelligence services.
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