Maksym Butkevych

Maksym Oleksandrovych Butkevych (, born 16 July 1977) is a Ukrainian human rights activist, journalist and member of the Ukrainian military.

Biography Maksym Oleksandrovych Butkevych was born in Kyiv, into an intellectual family. Since childhood, he dreamed of being an astronaut, but doctors discovered that he had heart problems.

Education While still a school student, in 1990, he declared his support for Ukrainian independence and participated in his first protest, establishing a non-violent strike committee at his school during the Revolution on Granite. After graduating from secondary school, he studied at the Ukrainian Humanities Lyceum.

He entered the Faculty of Philosophy of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and graduated with a degree in philosophy (specialising in social philosophy and the philosophy of history). In his student years, He was a prominent anarchist and anti-fascist activist participating in the student trade union Direct Action. From 1998 to 1999, Butkevych worked as a methodologist at the Department of Cultural Studies and Archeology at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

During his education, he graduated from the military department and received the rank of lieutenant in the reserves.

Later, he studied at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, where he received a Master of Arts in Anthropology (specializing in the anthropology of development and social transformation). Within "No Borders", Maksym worked on the protection of refugees, internally displaced persons and stateless persons, and studied hate speech.

For several years, he worked as a public relations specialist for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Eastern Europe. He was also an advisor to the UNHCR Office.

In 2012, together with Tetiana Pechonchyk and Maryna Hovorukhina, he founded the Human Rights Centre ZMINA.

Since March 2014, Butkevych has been involved as a coordinator in the Resource Center for Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons, a joint project of civic initiatives that provide assistance to internally displaced persons and the Secretariat of the . The aim of the initiative was to help IDPs from Crimea and Donbas: to connect those who provide housing and those who need it, and to provide food, clothing, medicine, and counselling.

In June 2022, Butkevych was captured near the Russian-held towns of Zolote and Hirske in Luhansk Oblast. Russian state media published a video of the interrogation. Subsequently, the Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed that Butkevych was a prisoner of war and as of 9 August was in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region. Due to his support for IDPs during the war in Donbas and because of his history as a journalist for the BBC, Butkevych was respectively labelled as a "neo-Nazi" and a "British spy" by the Russian media.

On 10 March 2023, Russia's Investigative Committee announced that Butkevych was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Butkevych was charged with war crimes against civilians, specifically firing a grenade launcher at civilians in Severodonetsk. The court ignored evidence to the fact that at the incriminated date of the alleged attack Butkevych was not present anywhere near the town.

The Joint Center for the Search and Release of Prisoners of War and human rights activists became engaged in working to free him.

In a 190-person prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia, Butkevych was released on 18 October 2024.

Awards On 29 September 2025 Maksym Butkevych was awarded with the prestigious Václav Havel Human Rights Prize 2025.