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 the aftermath of the war, he delivered humanitarian aid to refugees and documented atrocities, and during the Second Chechen War he filmed the aftermath of the Novye Aldi massacre in 2000.