The FSB Accused a Resident of Melitopol with Severe Mental Disorders of Espionage

The FSB has opened a criminal case on espionage against 24-year-old resident of Melitopol Leonid Popov, he is in custody in pre-trial detention center #1 in Donetsk. This was reported to IStories by Alexei Ladukhin, lawyer of the human rights organization Every Human Being.

As follows from the response of the FSB (which is at our disposal), the case was initiated on August 15, 2024. Thus, formally Popov was at large until that date, but he disappeared in April 2023 — just a day before he was supposed to evacuate from occupied Melitopol, IStories reported a year ago.

For several months nothing was known about him, and in June 2023 his former cellmate contacted Leonid’s parents. He said that the young man was kept in the basement of the local commandant’s office, he was in a serious condition. According to him, they were given water once every two or three days, fed not every day and beaten, and Leonid was constantly lying down and extremely emaciated. 

In 2018, Leonid was diagnosed with undifferentiated schizophrenia. According to his mother Anna Makhno, he was a gifted child — he played in an orchestra, practiced dancing, played chess, won science olympiads in chemistry and physics, and had a phenomenal memory. The disease manifested itself in adolescence, and in 2017 the exacerbation began: Leonid could not study, began to walk with closed eyes, stopped feeling smells and tastes, incoherently talking. Then he was diagnosed with schizophrenia (the medical report is at our disposal).

His mother said that Leonid is kind and naive, like a child, easily falls under the influence of others and does not understand people’s emotions. 

In July 2023, three months after the disappearance, Leonid was taken to Melitopol hospital in a dying condition — he was emaciated (he weighed 40 kg with a height of almost two meters) and poorly aware of what was happening to him. With the help of his roommate he was able to get in touch with his parents. This is how he described his experience in detention a year ago: “Mom, you know how you said that there’s a hell? Well, I went to hell. I was so scared to fall asleep. I was scared that they would come and choke me again, kill me. I was so thirsty, but they wouldn’t give water. But most of all, I wanted to eat. Then they beat me even harder. They beat me so hard that I couldn’t use the toilet for four days. Why, mom?” Due to hunger, constant abuse, stress and lack of treatment, his mental disorder worsened and he began to lose his memory and sense of reality. 

“Lenya is 22 years old, but he’s like a child now,” Anna described at the time. “He doesn’t understand anything. He gets excited over cupcakes, just eating and eating... They took his blood, and he’s terribly afraid of blood and needles. He cries, ‘Mom, I’m so scared, I’m afraid all my blood will drain out.’ Like a little kid.”

After two weeks in the hospital, his father received a call from representatives of the occupation Investigative Committee, who said that they were releasing his son for lack of corpus delicti (at that time no charges were officially brought against him). But when his father brought Leonid home from the hospital, the military arrived, put a bag over his head and took him away again.

After that, the young man’s father wrote a report to the “Investigative Committee” of Melitopol on the fact of kidnapping. The case was initiated, but in December 2023 they invited him to the “Investigative Committee” and showed him a photo of his son, which was allegedly sent to them from the FSB. On it Leonid holds a piece of paper on which it is written: “Everything is alright with me! I refuse to report my whereabouts.” The law enforcers demanded to withdraw the report about the kidnapping, since the son was “found,” which the father was forced to do. 

Since then, nothing has been known about Leonid for almost a year. In the fall of 2023, human rights activists from the organization Every Human Being, who help Popov’s family, received a reply from the FSB that Leonid had not been detained and there were no investigative actions against him. The law enforcers provided confirmation that Leonid had become the subject of a criminal case only a year later, and they claim that the case was initiated in August 2024. It is unknown where Leonid Popov was almost a year and a half before and on what grounds he was held. 

Both of these documents (dated fall 2023, stating that the young man was not detained, and August 2024, stating that a case had been opened) are signed by the same person — A. R. Dzhambulatov, “the first deputy head of the FSB Department in Zaporizhzhya region.” A man with such initials — Anzor Ruslanovich Dzhambulatov — was listed as deputy chief of the FSB Directorate for Chechnya in April 2023. 

“They kidnapped a person and held him for a year without applying a measure of restraint, assigning any status, or granting him the rights afforded to a suspect,” says human rights advocate Alexei Ladukhin. “He wasn’t allowed to call his family, meet with a lawyer, receive packages, and so on. And after a year, they labeled him a suspect.”

All this time Leonid did not receive treatment prescribed by a psychiatrist. It can be assumed that during the year in detention, which has passed since his second abduction, his condition has deteriorated even more.

According to human rights activist Alexei Ladukhin, there is little hope that Leonid will be found innocent. Since 2022, not a single acquittal for Ukrainian citizens in a Russian court or in a court in the occupied territories is known.

There is a possibility that Leonid could be released as a result of an exchange, when together with prisoners of war, the Russian side returns civilian hostages to Ukraine. According to human rights activists, the Ukrainian parliamentary commissioner for human rights, Dmytro Lubinets, is working on Leonid’s release.

There is still no contact with Leonid Popov. 

IStories continues to collect information about the abductions of civilians in the occupied territories. If you know about cases of abductions or those who were abducted but managed to get out, contact us by mail uzhvak@istories.media or by our Telegram feedback bot.