Maksym Butkevych tells of pattern of beatings and threats of execution and sexual violence to extract ‘confession’
The first moments in Russian captivity for Maksym Butkevych saw humiliations that would pale in comparison with what would soon follow.
Taken prisoner in the early months of the war in Ukraine in 2022, Butkevych and his fellow soldiers – who had been lured into a trap on the eastern frontline – at first were punched and robbed. “There were a few kicks and punches,” recalls Butkevych, who had been a human rights defender and journalist before Russia’s invasion compelled him to volunteer as a soldier.
“They took watches and other stuff. When a soldier picked up my earphones and asked whose they were, he said: ‘Will you give them to me as a present?’ Even though I was kneeling with the barrel of a gun against my head, I told him no.”
However, the treatment would become much darker amid a pattern of harsh beatings, torture, the threat of execution and sexual violence aimed at a coerced “confession” for an imaginary crime.
