Doctor Nelli Butkevych, according to testimonies of Ukrainian dissidents, applied methods of punitive medicine in the USSR. Many "patients" died prematurely.
The football club "Polissya" congratulated Nelli Butkevych, the mother of the club’s president Hennadiy Butkevych, on her 90th birthday. Ukrainian dissidents report that she used methods of punitive medicine in the USSR.
"Nelli Butkevych remains a sincere and dedicated fan of ’Polissya.’ We sincerely admire your love for football, your constant presence at matches, and the support you provide to the team in any weather and at any time," — reads the congratulatory message.
Writers and artists encountered Nelli Butkevych in Dnipro
Former editor of the sports website Tribuna.com Volodymyr Harets shared on the social network X quotes from Ukrainian dissidents about Nelli Butkevych’s actions. She may have managed punitive psychiatry in Dnipro.
Here, Polissya congratulates Butkevych’s mother on her 90th birthday. It brings tears to the eyes.It’s a pity that dissidents won’t read about the former head of punitive psychiatry in Dnipro. They also have vivid quotes.Yosyp Terelya: «Sadist Butkevych prescribed me everything her little head could come up with»1/5 pic.twitter.com/EQRt1IUMO8
— Volodymyr Harets (@VHarets) September 17, 2025Writer and artist Yosyp Terelya, while in the Dnipropetrovsk special prison RB YaE-308, encountered Butkevych. According to him, she was then the head of the third department, and they called her "Lieutenant-Communist Nelya Butkevych."
"From the first moments, I felt the horror of my situation. Sadist Butkevych prescribed me everything her little head could come up with. Throughout the entire year of 1978, I was subjected to all kinds of abuse, treatment, and terror," — he writes in his memoirs.
And a teacher and war veteran named Sereda complained to Butkevych about orderlies who were robbing patients. Butkevych called the foreman and gave the order to "give the slanderer a good lesson." The orderlies dragged him to the toilet and killed him during the beating.
An active participant in the Ukrainian national liberation movement, Petro Lutsyk, a prisoner with a 32-year sentence, recounted how Butkevych prescribed him various medications for a long time. The dissident quotes a fragment of a dialogue with her.
"You’re getting the little pills, right? – Yes, I am. – And how are they? – No effect. – But still – how? I want to know. It’s like my head is stuffed with cotton."
Petro Lutsyk died in 2006, and Yosyp Terelya — in 2009.
What else is Doctor Nelli Butkevych known for?
About the application of punitive medicine under Nelli Butkevych’s leadership, public activist from Mykolaiv Anatoliy Ilchenko spoke. Doctors in Dnipropetrovsk diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia and sent him for forced treatment.
Ilchenko asked Butkevych not to prescribe treatment for 2–3 weeks so that during this period she could understand his normal condition. In response, the doctor said: "You are dangerous precisely because you do not consider yourself sick. You do not understand that you are ill. And therefore, you can cause a lot of harm. You do not realize your situation."
"She prescribed me chlorpromazine with magnesium in the morning and evening. They injected me — unbearable pain, I couldn’t sleep until midnight. In the morning, they injected the other buttock. The pain was excruciating, I was lying on my side, on my stomach. During rounds – Nelya Mykhailivna comes in. I ask her to cancel the injections because it hurts so much. She says: ’Anatoliy Ilchenko, you haven’t been treated at all yet.’ And they continue," — he recalls.
Later, Ilchenko was prescribed a course of insulin therapy, with the dosage increasing daily.