From election monitoring to a prison hospital. Russian political scientist Alexander Kynev sustained two tibia fractures after arrest on drug charges

Alexander Kynev, 51 is a leading expert on Russian regional power structures and elections. He was designated a “foreign agent” by the Ministry of Justice earlier this year.

According to a case card found by Mediazona, he faces charges related to the illegal production, sale, or distribution of drugs on a large scale. This charge carries a 10- to 20-year prison sentence.

“Slovo Zashchity”, a human rights project, cites a source within the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) medical unit as saying that Kynev was diagnosed with two tibia fractures (unclear if those are to the same leg) following his arrest. The source alleged the injuries were the “result of torture”.

He is currently being held in the medical wing of the “Matrosskaya Tishina” pre-trial detention centre in Moscow; his injuries required a cast. The FSIN is supposedly conducting an internal check regarding the incident.

Kynev’s defence lawyer, Mikhail Biryukov, confirmed his client’s detention to Mediazona but declined to comment on the specifics of the case. Biryukov stated he could neither confirm nor deny the reports of physical violence. However, a separate source familiar with the situation corroborated the reports of Kynev’s hospitalisation to Mediazona.

The arrest comes just days after Kynev completed his independent monitoring campaign of the 2026 State Duma elections. In a post on Facebook, he lamented the polarising nature of Russian political discourse (“most don’t need facts, but only agreement with their position”) and wrote about severe burnout after four months of grueling work.

“I am very tired after four months of working to the bone, single-handedly conducting heavy monitoring, based on which four public reports were written, plus a huge number of interviews and comments,” Kynev wrote. “I am not made of iron.”

On September 21, Kynev noted about the Duma elections: “What is happiness in Russian elections? It’s when they didn’t steal everything from you—even though they could have.”