Global Courant 2023-05-17 15:04:44
By Tatyana Gomozova and Lucy Papachristou
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Three Russian academics who have worked on hypersonic missile technology face “very serious allegations,” the Kremlin said on Wednesday, in a treason investigation that has raised alarm in the Russian scientific community.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was aware of an open letter from Siberian scientists in defense of the men, but said the matter was a matter for the security services.
In the letter published Monday, colleagues of Anatoly Maslov, Alexander Shiplyuk and Valery Zvegintsev protested their innocence, saying the prosecutions threatened to seriously damage Russian science.
“We know each of them as a patriot and a decent person who is incapable of doing what the investigative authorities suspect them to do,” they said.
President Vladimir Putin boasted that Russia is the world leader in hypersonic missiles, which can travel at speeds of up to Mach 10 (12,250 km/h) to evade enemy air defenses. On Tuesday, Ukraine said it had managed to destroy six of the weapons in one night, though Russia disputed this.
Announcements of academic conferences spanning many years show that the arrested scientists were frequent attendees.
In 2012, Maslov and Shiplyuk presented the results of an experiment in designing hypersonic missiles at a seminar in Tours, France. In 2016, all three were among the authors of a book chapter entitled “Hypersonic Short-Duration Facilities for Aerodynamic Research at ITAM, Russia”.
The open letter from their colleagues at ITAM – the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in Novosibirsk – stated that the materials presented by the scientists at international forums had been repeatedly checked to ensure they contained no restricted information.
The cases revealed that “any article or report may lead to charges of high treason,” the open letter said.
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“In this situation, we are not only afraid of the fate of our colleagues. We simply do not understand how to continue doing our job.”
The letter also cited the case of Dmitry Kolker, another Siberian scientist who was arrested last year on charges of state treason and flown to Moscow despite suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer. Kolker, a laser specialist, died two days later.
It said such cases had a chilling effect on young Russian scientists.
“Even now, the best students refuse to join us and our best young employees are leaving science. A number of research areas critical to laying the fundamental foundations for the space technology of the future are closing simply because employees are afraid to participate in such research.”
Asked about the letter, Kremlin spokesman Peskov said: “We have indeed seen this call, but Russian special services are working on it. They are doing their job. These are very serious allegations.”
(Reporting by Tatiana Gomozova in Moscow and Lucy Papachristou in Gdansk; written by Mark Trevelyan; edited by Kevin Liffey)
