Larysa Shevandina

Larysa Shevandina is a Ukrainian human rights defender, founder and president of Ukrainian Movement RETURN FREEDOM, which unites families of Ukrainian civilian hostages and international partners to secure their protection and release.

She holds three university degrees. She lived in Donetsk until 2014. During the battle for Debaltseve, she and her husband rescued and evacuated civilians under shellfire. Forced to flee Russian occupation, she moved to Kyiv and has lived in Germany since 2022.

Her human rights work is inseparable from personal tragedy. On 1 May 2015, her husband, Oleg Shevandin — a multiple world and European wushu champion, Ukrainian national team coach, scholar and civic leader — was abducted for his pro-Ukrainian stance and strong public standing. After refusing to cooperate with the occupation authorities, he was placed in incommunicado detention, without family contact or access by international humanitarian missions.

Her fight for his release grew into extensive international advocacy for thousands of Ukrainian civilian hostages. She initiates and coordinates advocacy efforts, builds international partnerships and drives concrete solutions in cooperation with governments, the UN, Council of Europe, PACE and European Parliament.

In 2026, together with the French association Pour l’Ukraine, pour leur liberté et la nôtre(PLU), she co-founded and became an ambassador of the international advocacy campaign Save Ukrainian Civilian Hostages TOGETHER. She also co-developed the Municipal Patronage Mechanism, through which European cities champion individual Ukrainian civilian hostages, and actively promotes it internationally.

She is among the initiators of the Act for Freedom Paris Summit, aimed at launching an International Coalition for the Protection of Ukrainian Civilian Hostages and developing a joint action plan for their release.

Her strategic mission is to unite the political will of governments, the capacities of intergovernmental institutions, human rights expertise and the strength of civil society into a single, permanent global mechanism. To turn international solidarity into coordinated action, making the location, protection and release of every Ukrainian civilian hostage a shared responsibility and priority of the international community.