The Council of Europe on Monday (September 29, 2025) awarded its 2025 rights prize to Ukrainian journalist and rights activist Maksym Butkevych, who was released last year after being captured by Russian forces.
Butkevych, co-founder of the independent Hromadske radio station and ZMINA human rights centre in Kyiv, joined the Ukrainian army in March 2022, then was detained in June and convicted of war crimes by a court in Lugansk in Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine in March 2023.
He was sentenced to a 13-year prison term on charges of wounding two civilians while firing an anti-tank grenade launcher in the eastern city of Severodonetsk, but he was released during an October 2024 prisoner exchange.
“This is no coincidence,” said Theodoros Rousopoulos, the head of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which bestows the award.
“The last few months have proved particularly dangerous for journalists,” he said, adding that 171 journalists were in detention in Europe at the beginning of the year, including at least 26 Ukrainians detained in Russia or in the territories occupied by Moscow in Ukraine.
The award is named after the late Czech dissident, playwright and post-communist president Vaclav Havel.
Previous winners include the Venezuelan opposition figure Maria Corina Machado in 2024 and Russian activist Vladimir Kara-Murza in 2022.