With the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin has increasingly used the practice of Soviet "punitive psychiatry" against his opponents. The study on The Jamestown Foundation platform discusses how modern Russian psychiatry fights dissent.
The study claims that Putin's regime has perfected the work of its Soviet predecessors.
"One of the most horrifying practices of the late Soviet period was the use of psychiatry to punish and even eliminate political opponents."
This usually took place in Moscow, often in the notorious Serbsky Institute. Modern "Putin's psychiatrists," however, are primarily used in the regions and republics of Russia.
Researchers cite many examples of "psychiatric imprisonment" from Yakutia, Bashkiria, Chechnya, and other Russian regions, where opponents were subjected to "psychiatric evaluations" followed by corresponding treatment.
According to one investigation, the number of victims has increased by at least 500% since 2022. According to Russian "psychiatrist" Lala Kasimova, who works in the Federal Security Service, "If you fight the Russian authorities, you are mentally ill and therefore deserve forced confinement in a psychiatric hospital and treatment with psychotropic drugs."
Today, Kremlin psychiatry avoids significant attention and criticism from international human rights defenders and the public due to numerous Russian laws and regulations governing psychiatric imprisonment, which simultaneously open the door to human rights violations. Furthermore, "the closure of many regional media outlets reporting such abuses allows Putin's spokespeople to deny any allegations."
The authors of the study suggest that "the Kremlin will continue to expand its punitive psychiatry, especially if the target remains outside Moscow, and thus outside the attention of Western media and diplomats." The lack of attention from the West to this issue only "opens the path to further advancement of Russia's human rights violations and the establishment of a repressive regime."
