Ivan Shukshin. Photo: Agentstvo

An electoral analyst who exposed huge levels of ballot-stuffing in March's presidential election has been placed on Russia’s wanted list for drug offences, independent media outlet Agentstvo reported on Thursday.

Ivan Shukshin denied the charges and said he had only previously faced one civil suit against him for taking part in a rally in support of late opposition leader Alexey Navalny. He assumed the criminal case was related to his work, he told Agentstvo.

He conceded the charges against him could be a simple bureaucratic error. “For example, [Articles] 228.1 (drug dealing) and 128.1 (defamation) differ by only one digit.” He said that when he spoke to an investigator by telephone, he was told the charges related to the election. “They couldn’t correct three numbers. The fools,” he wrote on X.

Shukshin’s analysis of the 2024 presidential election showed that Putin received an “unprecedented” 22 million extra votes thanks to ballot-stuffing. Novaya Europe calculated that Putin may have received over 31 million fake votes in total.

According to the official election results published by Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC), Putin secured 87.28% of the vote. CEC head Ella Pamfilova said that over 87.1 million Russians — 77.44% of the eligible electorate — had voted, a record turnout for a Russian presidential election in the modern era.

Shukshin lives outside Russia.