Prominent activist and journalist volunteered to defend Ukraine on first day of full Russian invasion
‘I saw the Russia n world from inside’: A Ukrainian human rights defender’s journey through war and captivityMaksym Butkevych: ‘I was lucky because I was tortured less than some prisoners of war I met.’ Photograph courtesy of Maksym Butkevych
The perfunctory training received while studying philosophy 30 years earlier meant Butkevych was made a platoon commander, even though he had no military experience, and was put in charge of some men who had fought in Donbas since 2014. Then a Ukrainian soldier from another group made contact and guided them along a route that he said would lead to safety. When they reached a clearing, he suddenly told them to stop and said he had been captured by the Russians and forced to lure the platoon into a trap.
I know better now what the ‘Russian world’ really is. I saw it from inside. I don’t want to say all Russians are torturers, but the system of values that Russia is built upon ... is strikingly different to ours “I wondered whether it would have been possible to withstand everything they would have done to me – maybe it would have been worth the risk, maybe it would even have been better to be dead than to be accused of those things. But in the end, I think I made the right choice – I wanted to live and tell the story.”
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