Moscow (AFP) - Environmentalist Dmitri Morozov urged his neighbors to demonstrate against alleged electoral fraud during Russia's legislative elections and analyst Alexander Kynev questioned the official results of the vote. Now, both are incarcerated.

First modification: 11/09/2026 - 12:51

The legislative elections held from September 18 to 20 resulted in the victory, by a wide margin, of President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, in a context of strong political repression since the offensive against Ukraine that began in February 2022.

For the Kremlin, these results show "an exceptional level of cohesion" around Putin, despite a difficult economic situation due - among other reasons - to Western sanctions and the colossal expense that the war entails.

During the elections, several NGOs reported around twenty arrests, mainly of observers and opposition candidates.

In Moscow, an engineer, Alexander Pavlov, 48, was arrested for taking photos at a polling station. The police then "beat him, handcuffed him, electrocuted him" and detained him for 48 hours, he told AFP.

More than 5,800 people have been imprisoned in Russia for clearly "political" reasons, according to the NGO Memorial, banned by Moscow for "extremism."

"Electrocuted"

1,000 km east of Moscow, in his hometown of Izhevsk, in Udmurtia, environmental activist Dmitri Morozov, 27, denounced alleged fraud during the legislative elections at the end of September.

"We saw how they stuffed the ballot boxes in favor of a single party," United Russia said on Telegram, where he also indicated that independent observers were expelled from voting centers and that opposition candidates were prosecuted.

Therefore, he requested authorization to organize a demonstration. The authorities refused.

Days later, the Russian security services (FSB) raided his parents' apartment and claimed to have found 1.38 g of drugs there.

Dmitri Morozov was arrested for "possession of narcotics in large quantities", a crime for which he faces 10 years in prison.

During his arrest, they put a bag over his head and he was "beaten," "electrocuted" with tasers and "hung by his feet with handcuffs," said his partner, Daria Baguina, on social media.

"They tried to extract confessions from him, stating that he had financed Ukraine and banned terrorist and extremist organizations. They did not succeed," he explained.

Morozov, meanwhile, defends his innocence.

a broken leg

For his part, Alexander Kynev, 51, is one of the country's most renowned specialists in the Russian electoral system. In late September, he noted that United Russia's actual results and participation rates were far from official data.

Two days later, he was arrested in Moscow and charged with "large-scale" drug trafficking. He could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

In February he had already been declared a "foreign agent" by the authorities, but he decided to continue his work.

During his arrest, security forces beat him, Kynev claims. He appeared by videoconference before a Moscow court, with a leg in a cast, where he had a "double fracture," he indicated.

Then, they put him in a cell with 35 other people where, having his leg in a cast, he could not go to the toilet (a hole in the floor), his lawyer, Mikhail Biriukov, told AFP.

At the end of October, Kynev decided to go on hunger strike, sparking a wave of support on social media that ultimately led to him being moved to another cell, which he shares with four detainees and has a "normal bathroom," according to Biriukov.

In his last message, published at the end of September, Alexander Kynev declared himself "exhausted" after "difficult monitoring" of the elections for four months. But he also assured that he would continue "doing" something that he considers "necessary."

© 2026 AFP

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