Disabled Ukrainian man abducted by Russian security forces in 2023 charged with ‘espionage’

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has opened a criminal espionage case against 24-year-old Leonid Popov, a resident of occupied Melitopol who was abducted and detained by Russian security forces in the spring of 2023, reports iStories.

Alexey Ladukhin, a lawyer with the human rights organization Every Human Being, told the publication that Popov is currently being held in a detention center in Donetsk. He faces up to 20 years in prison. According to relatives, Popov was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2017.

The FSB formally launched the case against Popov on August 15, 2024, but as iStories previously reported, he had been missing long before that date. Popov disappeared in April 2023, just days before he was supposed to be evacuated from Melitopol. In June, his parents were contacted by a former cellmate who claimed he’d been held with Popov in the basement of a commandant's office, where they were beaten, starved, and deprived of water.

A month later, Popov was brought to a hospital in Melitopol emaciated and in critical condition. He remained under military supervision while hospitalized. In August, the Investigative Committee allowed his father to take him home, citing a lack of evidence to pursue charges. However, the same day Popov was released, security forces abducted him again as soon as he reached home.

Popov’s parents filed a kidnapping report with the Investigative Committee. In December 2023, they were summoned to the office and shown a photograph purportedly sent by the FSB. The image showed Leonid holding a piece of paper that read: “I’m fine! I refuse to disclose my location.”

“They kidnapped a man and held him for a year without imposing any legal measures, assigning him any status, or granting him any of the rights guaranteed to a suspect,” lawyer Alexey Ladukhin told reporters. “Then, after a year, they decided to name him a suspect.”