Viktor Popkov

Viktor Alekseyevich Popkov (; June 17, 1946 – June 2, 2001) was a Russian dissident, Christian, humanitarian, human rights activist and journalist.

A deeply religious Old Believer and pacifist, Popkov taught non-violence, and spent the last 15 years of his life in conflict areas of the collapsing Soviet Union, including the Abkhaz–Georgian conflict, the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, and the Chechen Wars. He also joined the Memorial Human Rights Center, a leading Russian human rights group, and worked as a freelance journalist for the oppositionist newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Popkov later led a peace march in Abkhazia, delivered food to the starving town of Tkvarcheli besieged by the Georgian forces, and helped save many people from summary execution after the fall of Sokhumi.

Popkov began working in Chechnya in 1995 during the First Chechen War, where he helped negotiate the release of dozens of civilian hostages and prisoners of war (including a Russian Army general), and was a frequent visitor to Grozny during the heavy fighting, where he helped release some of the Russian prisoners of war held in the Presidential Palace in Grozny just before the Russian bombing in 1995.

In 1999 he conducted a 40-day hunger strike in protest at the renewed war in Chechnya. During the Second Chechen War, Popkov often was arbitrarily detained by the security forces and his humanitarian activities were severely hindered by the Russian military. He was also frequently detained and threatened by some of the Chechen field commanders.

Popkov's condition was irreversibly aggravated when the troops at the checkpoint held him, his driver, and a Chechen doctor Rosa Muzarova (all of whom suffered serious injuries in the attack and were heavily bleeding) for reportedly one to three hours following the shooting. By the time the wounded were taken to Hospital No. 9 in Grozny, their condition was critical and Popkov was already in coma. Viktor Popkov died in the Vishnevsky 3rd Central Military Clinical Hospital in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast, without regaining consciousness, leaving behind a seriously ill widow Tatyana and a disabled daughter Ulyana.