MOSCOW: Two Russians who accused the ruling party of fraudulently winning a parliamentary election in September have been arrested and allegedly tortured and beaten, in what critics say is a campaign of intimidation.
The United Russia party backed by President Vladimir Putin won an inevitable super-majority against a backdrop of political repression that has intensified since Moscow ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022.
The Kremlin said the results showed an "exceptional level of cohesion" around Putin, despite mounting economic challenges with huge government spending on the war and Western sanctions.
Elections in Russia have long been judged by independent observers and rights groups as neither free nor fair.
Both the men who now find themselves behind bars -- environmental activist Dmitry Morozov and political scientist Alexander Kynev -- were arrested on drugs charges after publicly alleging electoral fraud.
Morozov, 27, is an environmental activist in the city of Izhevsk, some 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) east of Moscow, who has been fighting to protect local parks and forests for more than a decade.
After the September election, he posted several videos on Telegram alleging the "election was stolen" and that he had seen "ballot stuffing" in favour of United Russia.
Izhevsk authorities denied his request to hold a protest against the results, saying a monument in the city square could be a hazard to any crowd -- a claim Morozov ridiculed.
Shortly afterwards, agents from Russia's FSB security services searched the apartment of Morozov's parents and said they found 1.38 grams of a synthetic drug.
Morozov was arrested -- then "tortured", according to his partner, Darya Bagina.
"During his arrest, he was beaten, subjected to electric shocks on his face, ribs, and legs, and hung upside down by his feet while handcuffed," Bagina said on social media.
"Following prolonged torture, he continued to be kicked -- they were trying to force a confession out of him, claiming that he had provided funding to Ukraine and to organisations designated as terrorist or extremist. They did not succeed -- Dmitry has never been involved in anything of the sort," she added.
The Kremlin has previously denied instances of torture in Russia's legal system.
Morozov says he is innocent.
According to his lawyer, Denis Varlamov, defendants in similar drugs cases are usually given suspended sentences.
"But politics is involved here, so he was detained immediately, without any scrutiny or discussion, and a preventive measure was imposed," Varlamov said.
Rights groups recorded at least 20 arrests during the election, mostly of observers and opposition candidates.
In Moscow, 48-year-old engineer Alexander Pavlov was arrested for taking photos in a polling station, then "beaten, handcuffed, electrocuted" by police officers and held in custody for 48 hours, he told AFP.
Yabloko, a liberal democratic party opposed to the Ukraine war, was struck off the ballot weeks before polls opened.
Kynev is a 51-year-old political scientist, known internationally for his granular analysis of Russian elections, who stayed in Russia even after being declared a "foreign agent".
At the end of September, he alleged United Russia's real vote share and turnout was far lower than officially announced.
On the same day, he wrote on social media he was "very tired" after four months of intensive monitoring of the campaign.
Two days later, he was arrested in Moscow and accused of "large-scale" drug trafficking.
He faces 20 years in prison, if convicted.
Kynev also said he was beaten by the security services during his arrest.
Appearing by videoconference in front of a Moscow court with a cast of his leg, he said he had suffered a "double fracture".
He had been held in a cell with 35 people, where the toilet is a hole in the floor, "impossible to use for someone who has a cast from the hip to the tips of his toes," his lawyer, Mikhail Biryukov, told AFP.
For this reason, Kynev stopped eating at the end of October as supporters highlighted his plight on social media.
He was then moved to a different cell, with four other inmates and a "normal toilet," Biryukov said.
Before his arrest, Kynev had written on social media: "I have done, and will continue to do, what I believe is necessary."