Punitive psychiatry is one of the most cynical forms of repression used by the Soviet regime against dissidents, particularly against members of Ukrainian nationalist movements. Under the guise of “treatment,” people were forcibly isolated in psychiatric hospitals where they were subjected to humiliation, solitary confinement, psychotropic drugs, and physical abuse. Especially dangerous was the use of powerful medications that drastically altered the psyche, suppressed the will, caused memory loss and chronic pain — turning a person into a “vegetable,” broken both morally and physically. This method made it possible to bypass legal proceedings, label political opponents as “mentally ill,” discredit their cause in the eyes of society, and ultimately destroy their human dignity. Today, the Russian Federation is returning to these barbaric practices.
On June 4, 2025, a court hearing was held in Voronezh for Grigory Severin, a resident of the region detained during mass arrests on April 22. The hearing concerned the investigator’s request to place him in a psychiatric hospital for a 30-day inpatient forensic psychiatric examination. The petition by investigator Kalinina (pictured in white next to the cage) was granted by Judge Artem Borisovich Korchagin of the Central District Court of Voronezh. Within a week, Grigory will be transferred from Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Voronezh to a psychiatric hospital in Lipetsk. The judge also extended his detention until August 31, 2025. At the hearing, Grigory once again declared himself a political prisoner.
This is a clear attempt to declare a healthy person mentally ill because of his beliefs — exactly the kind of repression once practiced in the USSR.
Grigory is well known in Voronezh as a principled and honest man. A talented mathematician, he worked at Voronezh State University in the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, which had a joint program with the Faculty of Law to train specialists in interdisciplinary fields. Some instructors from the law faculty began extorting bribes from students. After students confided in Grigory, he reported the incident to law enforcement, and the corrupt professor was detained. However, due to intervention by the professor’s connections, he was soon released. The teacher was replaced to allow students to pass their exams, leaving no official “victims.” Although Grigory succeeded in helping his students, he was left disillusioned by the justice system.
Then there was participation in public protests. And then came dismissal from the university. Grigory began to tutor and remained socially active. For which he received his first criminal sentence. In early 2021, a criminal case was opened against him under the article on public calls for extremism (Part 2 of Article 280 of the Criminal Code) due to a publication on VKontakte made two years earlier. According to the investigation, Severin allegedly wrote on his page “cut the KGB” to a post about the shooting that Podolsk resident Yevgeny Manyurov opened that day near the FSB building on Lubyanka . Severin did not admit guilt. In August 2022, the court sentenced him to two years in a penal colony.
” In the colony, I asked to work, to be taken to pick tomatoes or to the sawmill. But they refused me: “No, you are an extremist and will spread some extremist ideas.” And I was in the punishment cell the whole time, in the punishment cell, they were constantly bringing [disciplinary sanctions] against me: either I didn’t keep my hands behind my back, or I didn’t greet the employees, ” Grigory said in an interview OVD-Info.
“ Healthy bulls, shanovni friends ! ” – this is how Grigory Severin from Voronezh began a conversation with members of the disciplinary commission in the colony on July 14, 2023. Later, the Paninsky District The Voronezh Region Court decided that this phrase discredits the Russian army . When asked by a prison officer , “Are you Ukrainian?”, Grigory calmly replies that he has Ukrainian roots.
A year after his release, Severin was sent to the penal colony again for 84 days: the court ruled that the days spent under house arrest were incorrectly counted towards his sentence. In September 2024, he served his entire sentence in the penal colony and was released.
On the day of mass searches on April 22, 2025 in Voronezh, Grigory was detained again, on April 23, a measure of restraint was chosen for him – detention. He is in the pre-trial detention center No. 1 in Voronezh . He has the status of a suspect in a criminal case on repeated discrediting of the army (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code). The formal reason for initiating a criminal case was the conversations he had with other prisoners in August 2024, when he was serving a sentence in a case on calls for extremism .
Concerned Voronezh residents came to the court hearing to support Severin. One of them is Yuri Avsenyev , who will have a similar trial tomorrow, June 5, at 16:00 in the Leninsky District Court. The petition for a psychiatric examination was filed by the investigator as part of a criminal case on calls for extremism.
Nina Belyaeva
Photos for this publication were taken from social networks.
