Cinism is a gun and an accurate shooter. Its president, has on the table the withdrawal of the country of the European Treaty Against torture, which is part since 1998. A political mockery that delves into the open wound of. Maksim Butkevich, 48, is one of them. His story is leisurely, but devastating. He was released in an exchange of prisoners of war on October 18, after two years and four months of captivity. He admits that he may sound strange that one is afraid of fear, a word game, but it is understood. “I remember the fear in prison when the guards were close, in the cells next door,” he explains, “I remember how pain anticipated, it is what gave me the most.”
The history of Butkevich, a native of kyiv, who before wielding weapons was a journalist and defender of human rights, with the BBC and Amnesty International in his file, is similar to that of so many Ukrainians who have passed and pass through with a particularity and frustration: he left there, others no, and does not know why. “I am anti -fascist and perhaps it was the least suitable prisoner to be,”
A trap
Although Butkevich had not been a friend of the war, on the night of February 24, 2022, a few hours after Moscow sent his troops to the neighboring country, he volunteered to defend his country. He participated successfully in. From there he jumped easily in command of a squad of 20 men. “We were not aware of how different war was there,” he acknowledges. On June 21 of that year he was captured along with eight of his recruits near the Mirna Dolina town, in Lugansk province. Remember how paradoxical it was to be fighting in a place that, translated, means Pacific Valley.
They had a trap. The command had ordered Butkevich and his men go to an observation point. The Russians were close. Communications had been lost, but the noise of many vehicles made them think of leaving. A comrade of another unit informed them that they were surrounded and that if they wanted to save themselves they had to follow their guidelines. The interlocutor, prisoner at that time of the Russian army, led them under open field threats. “They will kill you if you do not throw their weapons,” he warned them in a new communication. They were an easy goal, so Butkevich ordered his chapter.
“They took us out everything we had,” he recalls, “but they didn’t treat us badly.” They were taken to an unidentified place to Lugansk’s outskirts. There changed the tone. Handcuffed, received the visit of other high -ranking military and special forces. The blows and threats began. Butkevich recalls something that one of the Russian commanders said: “You are not prisoners of war [protegidos por el derecho internacional]nobody knows where you are, if you don’t behave, you will die. ”
Systematic vexations
The United Nations accuses the Russian army of torturing Ukrainian prisoners of war. These practices range from ill -treatment to the extreme conditions of internment and even sexual violence. . He also noted that Russian prisoners had denounced ill -treatment in transit centers in Ukraine.
The Human Rights Office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) with inmates: false judgments under positions of terrorism, espionage, sabotage, destruction of the property or war crimes. In total, the OSCE has been able to document 1,472 of these invented causes.
As a climax, the Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, urged Putin last week to elevate the Russian withdrawal of the European Convention for the prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading penalties or treatment to Parliament, adopted in 1987 by the Council of Europe, an agency of which Russia is not part after being expelled because of the invasion of Ukraine. Moscow, however, is still a signatory of this treaty against torture, as well as the UN Convention.
Confession
Maksim Butkevich continues his story. The next one who entered to interrogate the captive squad made them kneel. I wanted the prisoners to recite next to him. “He took a wooden stick and threatened to use it against me if someone was confused,” says Butkevich. He believes they wanted to humiliate him for being the chief of the platoon. “He started hitting me at a specific point of the back, behind my shoulder. I told him that I was going to break it, I was dizzy, and replied that I knew what I was doing.” He was with his hands immobilized for weeks.
Others came and continued hitting him. One of them made him lift his arms up to punch him in his stomach. With the limbs in that position the pain is stronger. They were transferred to another Lugansk prison, where they received a mattress in poor condition, insufficient food and a towel. There was no toilet paper. The ill -treatment followed during the coming months; More interrogations of different security forces and the self -proclaimed Russian authority of Lugansk. Until August arrived from that first year of war. There began the manufacture of the case that would end in a conviction.
In August, a couple of months after capture, Buktevich was questioned without seeing his interlocutors. While they were hit with a baton and hands, covered with gloves, they gave him three options: either he declared himself guilty of war crimes, he was convicted and exchanged; Or they sent him where, according to the accusation, he had committed his crime, they let him escape and shot him; or they locked him with common prisoners, giving them free to do what they wanted with him. “I will confess,” he told them. He signed the paper without even knowing what he put because they covered it with his hands. What he could see is an electrified stick with which, as they told him, they could violate him. This did not happen, although Butkevich did listen to their jailers on occasion to account for this type of vexation.
He was the only one of the detainees in Mirna Dolina that June 21, 2022 who was forced to sign a confession. Five of his men were exchanged by Russian prisoners; Three are still captive. In March 2023, Butkevich was sentenced to 13 years in prison for war crimes. He knew later that in that guilt brief he appeared as responsible for the death of two civilians in a town where he was never. In fact, on the date of the event, he was still in kyiv. The victims were real, but had perished by Russian fire.
His destiny was a strict regime prison where he could finally walk and see the light, where he exercised and taught English to other colleagues; Where he listened to music that he remembered in his head, he created dystopian stories or recalled all the good people he had met. “My interrogators could not snatch that inner world,” he has a certain pride. At that time an international campaign had already been launched for their release. It took place ten months ago with another 189 prisoners of war.
