29 September 2026 | 16:52
READING: 3 minutes
The arrest of political scientist Aleksandr Kynev, a few days after the elections whose statistical irregularities he had highlighted, marks a turning point in the balance of power in Russia. First, because he has been formally charged with large-scale drug trafficking, accusations that could carry a sentence of 10 to 20 years in prison; the charges therefore go beyond mere discrediting or false information about the armed forces and also include violations of laws on extremist organizations, undesirable organizations, or foreign agents — the legal toolkit for political cases developed step by step since 2012, with an acceleration after the start of the “special military operation” against Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
As political analyst Abbas Gallyamov — a former speechwriter for Vladimir Putin, now designated a foreign agent and sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison for spreading false information about the armed forces — recalled, the only previous “political” case in which drug charges were brought was that of journalist Ivan Golunov in 2019, who was arrested and later released following widespread protests “but because one of his investigations had stepped on the toes of influential security officers (chekists).” The circumstances of Kynev’s arrest, however, indicate a change of approach. “The regime,” Gallyamov explained recently in an interview with Ekho, “has realized that political repression negatively affects public perceptions of the authorities. They have therefore decided to begin to disguise it. Political accusations from now on will be replaced by straightforward criminal charges.”
Kynev, 51, who previously held a post at the Moscow Higher School of Economics, was then attacked — some speak of torture — upon his arrival at the Moscow prison Matrosskaya Tishina, and was admitted to the prison infirmary with two fractured tibiae and other contusions, as his lawyer confirmed last night. “The details of his arrest are now known. More will soon emerge. But there have already been several twists and the situation is decidedly more serious than it appears,” wrote the well-known political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya on her Telegram account, suggesting “more than just the fractures.”
“It is a serious and truly political matter. The FSB has arrested a figure who had worked as a consultant for the new ‘system’ party ‘New People’ and had not hidden his support for that formation, which was accepted by the Kremlin’s political apparatus, albeit with a number of reservations,” she added. “I would not be surprised if Sergei Kiriyenko’s collaborators and Kiriyenko himself (the deputy chief of the Kremlin staff who oversees domestic policy in Russia) were unaware of his imminent arrest. The FSB built this case to demonstrate that political leaders allow ‘traitors’ to gain ground within the system,” Stanovaya specified. His arrest is also a signal to the new party admitted to the Duma.
Last February Kynev was declared a “foreign agent.” In a Telegram post he had described his extreme exhaustion after four months of nonstop work on “complex monitoring” and an “intense and stressful” campaign, constantly confronting “stories that I often could not reveal publicly.”