A Russian court began the trial of a hypersonic missile scientist accused of treason as authorities pursue a crackdown on military-use technology experts.
(Bloomberg) — A Russian court began the trial of a hypersonic missile scientist accused of treason as authorities pursue a crackdown on military-use technology experts.
The St. Petersburg city court held a closed-door hearing in the case of Anatoly Maslov on Thursday, according to its press service. Maslov, 76, is one of three scientists from the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in Novosibirsk arrested on treason charges in the past year.
All are specialists in the hypersonics technology used in Russia’s latest missiles that are claimed to be capable of flying at as much as 10 times the speed of sound and have become part of the arsenal used in President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military said it shot down six air-launched Kinzhal hypersonic missiles fired against the capital Kyiv in mid-May, using US-made Patriot air defense systems. Putin had touted the weapon as unstoppable when it was first unveiled in 2018.
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Maslov was detained in June last year. Director Alexander Shiplyuk and senior researcher Valery Zvegintsev were also arrested on suspicion of treason in the past year, according to an open letter of support published on May 15 by staff at the Siberian institute.
State Secrets
While the security services haven’t disclosed details of the charges, all three are “incapable of doing what the investigating authorities suspect them of,” the staff wrote. Their participation in international scientific forums and publications in peer-reviewed journals can’t be regarded as treason, especially as all materials were checked to ensure they didn’t contain state secrets, according to the letter.
The arrests of Maslov and Shiplyuk were linked to work on hypersonic weapons, Kommersant newspaper reported last year.
They are accused of revealing state secrets through contacts with China and Iran, according to Russian media reports. All had participated in a European Union research program, said the T-invariant scientific online publication, citing people familiar with the matter.
Russia in April toughened the penalty for treason, raising the punishment to life imprisonment from the previous maximum sentence of 20 years.
Another Novosibirsk scientist, Dmitry Kolker, a specialist in quantum physics and laser systems, was also charged with treason last year while terminally ill with cancer. He died two days after his arrest at age 54.
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