20-year-old Bohdan Maksymenko has been imprisoned by the Russia-backed terrorists for two and a half months for his pro-Ukrainian views that he expressed openly on social media.

The so-called ‘DPR ministry of state security’ arrived at the flat Maksymenko shares with his mother on 10 April and carried out a search. They took his computer away, and him. On 13 May the family were told that he had been ‘arrested’ for 30 days on suspicion of ‘extremist activities’.

The young man has a congenital heart defect and there are grave concerns for his state of health without medication and in the custody of militants who are notorious for torturing hostages. Only on 22 June relatives were at least able to get a parcel with medication accepted at the SIZO [remand prison].

They know nothing about his state of health, and it can only be hoped that the militants have understood that Maksymenko’s heart defect mean that their customary torture methods would likely prove fatal.