It is over three years since Leonid Popov, an extremely vulnerable young man with autism, was abducted by the Russian invaders. He remains in Russian captivity, with the Russians having first almost caused his death through starvation and then come up with insane ‘spying’ charges. Instead of at least releasing him when an occupation ‘court’ declared him unfit to stand ‘trial’, Russia instead chose punitive psychiatry, with this potentially a sentence without end.
As reported, Leonid Popov (b. 31 October 2000) was seized by the Russians occupying his native city of Melitopol in April 2023. He was just 22, with special needs, which his captors would have immediately understood, yet clearly ignored. According to his mother, Hanna Makhno, Leonid had been a musically and academically gifted child, with a phenomenal memory and a passionate love of books and interest in science. It was earlier reported that in adolescence his behaviour had changed dramatically and, in 2018, he was officially diagnosed as suffering from undifferentiated schizophrenia (a mixture of three types, with symptoms including disorganized behaviour and thoughts; as well as delusions or hallucinations).
In a recent interview, Hanna explained how she came to be separated from her two sons at the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She had been living in Poltava oblast with her sister, but Leonid and his younger brother had gone to Melitopol to be with their father who had had a serious accident and ended up in intensive care. In this later interview, Leonid’s mother mentions only his autism, but speaks of her concern from the beginning of the Russian occupation as her son needed medication which he had run out of.
She tried to persuade both sons to leave immediately but they did not want to leave their father after his accident. Then in May 2022, the Russians briefly seized Leonid and though on that occasion, they soon released him, they did not return his Ukrainian passport. This meant that in June 2022, when his younger brother was finally able to get to government-controlled Ukraine, Leonid could not go with him and remained with his father. When Hanna suggested that she come to him, Leonid dissuaded her, saying that she would not then be able to get out again.
In May 2023, Hanna finally managed to find a way of evacuating Leonid. It did not happen, as Leonid was abducted by the Russians on 24 May, two days before the planned evacuation. Leonid simply disappeared, with his mother understanding immediately that something bad had happened as he lived to a strict timetable and always contacted her three times a day.
It was only after two weeks that she at least received a call from an acquaintance, whose identity she cannot reveal for the person’s safety, but who was able to tell her that Leonid was alive and being held ‘in a basement’ (where the Russian invaders most often held and imprisoned their hostages).
Three months after his abduction, he was taken to the hospital in Melitopol in a grave state. The young man, who is almost 2 metres tall, was extremely emaciated, and was placed under a drip, yet the Russians took him away again after only nine days.
It was thanks to another patient in the ward that Hanna received a brief message from Leonid. He wrote: “Mama, you told me that there is a Hell, well I have been in Hell. I was so afraid to fall asleep, fearing that they would come and suffocate me, kill me. I also wanted so much to live, but they didn’t give me any water. And more than anything, I wanted food. They beat me badly, they beat me so hard that for four days I couldn’t go to the toilet. For what, Mama?”
After he was taken from the hospital, it was almost a year before his family learned anything about his whereabouts. On 15 August 2024, it became known that the Russians had initiated charges over supposed ‘spying’, under Article 276 of Russia’s criminal code. This has become the ‘default’ charge against the civilians whom the Russians begin seizing as soon as they have invaded any Ukrainian territory, with any ‘trial’ (or the lack of any trial before announcement of a huge sentence) taking place behind closed doors, with convictions guaranteed.
His evident vulnerability and special needs had not stopped the Russians from torturing him, and they were clearly seen as no impediment to holding him in the appalling conditions of the Russian occupation SIZO [remand prison] in Donetsk and staging a ‘trial’. This seems to have taken place on 12 February 2025, with the occupation ‘court’ declaring him unfit to stand trial and ordering that be forcibly placed in the psychiatric hospital in Zhanivka where he remains to this day. His lawyer was told that his supposed ‘psychiatric treatment’ would continue until “he recovered fully”. This is nonsense. As his mother stresses, “autism is not treated – it’s a special form of development, not a disease”.
This is punitive psychiatry, and the scope for its abuse is as broad and likely to be used as in Soviet times against dissidents. The most terrible thing, Hanna says, is that they know almost nothing about what state her son is in. They found out that he had a high temperature for a long time that the doctors could not lower, although not why this happened, nor whether there were any other consequences. His lawyer (seemingly Oleksiy Ladukhin, a lawyer from the human rights NGO Every Human Being) also informs that he was held for some time in total isolation. His ‘medication’ has been changed several times, although it is quite unclear what any of these drugs are (and why they are being administered).
“I don’t know when my son will return home, but I know for certain that I do not have the right to be silent. Lyonya is a person with autism, yet despite this they accused him of spying and are now forcibly holding him in a psychiatric institution. I want the world to see that people with psychological disorders are also victims of the war and need protection. But most of all I want the day that my son comes home.”
