Vladimir was accused of administering the community on VKontakte “FOR THE ADZINU DZYARZHANU MOVU IN BELARUS!”
In February 2021, Vladimir Butkovets contacted the Gomel Investigative Committee with a request to be questioned as a witness in the case of human rights activist Leonid Sudalenko , to whom he had repeatedly sought legal assistance.
In the summer of 2022, Vladimir was fired from his job as "politically unreliable."
Vladimir was first detained on September 5, 2022, and sentenced to seven days in jail under Article 19.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses for "dissemination of extremist materials."
On February 13, 2023, the Gomel Regional Court sentenced him to three years in a maximum-security penal colony.
The appeal hearing took place on April 18, 2023. The Supreme Court commuted the sentence to three years of restricted freedom in an open correctional facility. Vladimir was released from Pretrial Detention Center No. 3 and remains at large pending his transfer to a correctional facility.
