“Spy mania”: Why do you think Russia accused of its scientists of being treason?

By Sergei Goryashko, BBC Russian

Russian president Vladimir Putin frequently boasts that his country is at the forefront of the world in advancing hypersonic weapons that can travel at 5 times that speed.

But a string Russian scientists who work on the science behind them have been accused of the crime of treason and detained in recent times according to rights groups. believe is an overly aggressive police crackdown.

The majority of those detained are in their 60s Three of them are deceased. One of them was rescued off his hospital beds during the last stages of cancer. He passed away shortly after.

Another one is Vladislav Galkin an academic of 68 years old living in Tomsk in the southern part of Russia was searched in April 2023.

Men in black masks were on the scene at 4:00 p.m in the kitchen, rummaging through cupboards and taking out papers that have scientific formulae according to a family member.

His wife, Tatyana, says she has informed their children who loved to play the game of chess with him, that he’s off on an official business trip. She claims that Russia’s security services known as the FSB has barred her from discussing the situation.

Since 2015, twelve physicists have been detained. They are at least in some manner with hypersonic technology, or with institutions working on it.

All of them are charged with high treason. This could be a result of leaking secret state secrets to other countries.

Russian trial for treason is held behind closed doors, therefore it’s not known the charges they face.

The Kremlin has stated that “the allegations have serious implications” and that it isn’t able to comment more because specific services have been involved.

But defence lawyers and their colleagues claim that the scientists were not involved in developing weapons, and that some instances are based on their cooperating with foreign scientists.

The critics also suggest that the FSB is trying to give the impression that foreign spy agencies are hunting for secrets about weapons.

Hypersonic is a term used to describe missiles that are capable of traveling at extremely fast speeds. They can change direction while in flight, defying air defenses.

Russia claims it has utilized two types of missiles during its war against Ukraine including the Kinzhal which was launched from an aircraft and the Zircon cruise missile.

But, Kyiv says its forces have destroyed a few Kinzhal missiles, prompting concerns about their capabilities.

Since the technology was created and implemented however, arrests have continued.

Following his arrest in April 2023 the court ordered him to be detained that same day with other scientist Valery Zvegintsev with whom he co-authored a number of papers.

State-owned media agency Tass has reported an anonymous source who claims that the arrest of Mr Zvegintsev could be prompted by an article that was published by one of the Iranian magazine in 2021.

Mr. Galkin as well as the Mr Zvegintsev are both listed in an article on air intake mechanisms in high-speed aircrafts released by the journal.

In the summer of 2022, the FSB took two of their colleagues from the same institute that was also headed by Mr. Zvegintsev the director of the institute and the former director of a laboratory that worked on aerodynamics at high speeds.

The employees of The Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM) wrote an open letter to the support of three of their arrested colleagues.

Removed from the institute’s website, they were renowned for their “brilliant research results” and “always maintained their loyalty” to the nation’s interests.

The work that they shared with the public was repeatedly checked for information that was restricted by ITAM’s expert panel but no such information was discovered.

“Hypersonic is a matter that you’re now required to imprison people to deal with,” says Yevgeny Smirnov who is a lawyer at First Division, a Russian human rights and legal organization.

Mr Smirnov stood up for scientists and other people that were accused of treason prior to his departure from Russia in 2021 to Prague in 2021. He was concerned about consequences for his actions.

He claims that no one of the researchers were involved in the defense industry however they were examining the scientific aspects of how metals change shape at supersonic speeds, or the effects of turbulent flow.

“This isn’t about creating rockets, but rather about studying mechanical processes” the scientist says. He adds that research findings could be utilized later by the developers of weapons.

The arrests started few years before when they were made by Vladimir Lapygin. He was 83 when his sentence was imposed in 2016, but was released in the year following his parole.

He was employed for 46 years with his employer, Russian space agency’s principal research center, TsNIIMash.

Lapygin was convicted of the aerodynamic software calculations that he emailed to an Chinese contact. He claims he sent a trial version in the course of discussions on possible sales of the complete program for the institute’s benefit.

However, he insists that the version he shared didn’t contain any confidential information but merely an example of a scenario that had been “repeatedly presented in public publications”.

Lapygin informed the BBC that all those detained related to hypersonics “had nothing to have anything to do with” creating weapons.

Another scientist arrested included Dmitry Kolker, a specialist at the Institute of Laser Physics, located in Siberia He was detained in 2022, while admitted to a hospital for advanced pancreatic cancer.

His family members said they believed that the allegations against him stemmed from the lectures he gave in China and that the content was accepted from the FSB and that a representative was with him on his trip.

Kolker passed away two days following his arrest at the age of 54.

“There’s an unrest in the system” claims a coworker of one of the scientists arrested who wanted to remain secret.

Scientists continue to publish internationally and work in foreign labs “meanwhile they are being questioned by the FSB believes that contact with foreign scientists and the writing in foreign journal publications is dereliction from the Motherland” They say.

The ITAM scientists share the same sentiment. “We are unable to comprehend how to carry on doing the job we’re supposed to do,” their open letter read.

“What we’re paid for this day… the next day is the motive to pursue criminal charges.”

They say that scientists are hesitant to participate in certain research areas, while promising young professionals have left science.

The letter is the only instance of support from the public. Other institutes where the scientists were detained have not responded.

Other instances are also believed as relating with international cooperation.

The investigation of two other scientists is linked to Hexafly the European project that aims to develop an ultrasonic aircraft for civilian use as per the lawyer, Mr Smirnov who was involved in the investigation.

This project, now completed was overseen by the European Space Agency and began in the year 2012.

The agency has told that the BBC “all technical exchanges and contributions were approved and planned” in a cooperative agreement between Russian as well as European parties that were involved.

Both scientists were sentenced 12-year prison sentences in the last year, but the Russian Supreme Court has ordered a second trial for one of the two.

Other arrests are related to research into aerodynamics of a spacecraft as it is re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

It was financed through an European Union scheme and run by the von Karman Institute of Fluid Dynamics in Belgium.

FSB investigators were worried about an elongated cone shape that resembled a weapon in the research of One of them Viktor Kudryavtsev was able to send an email to von Karman Institute, according to his wife, Olga.

The institute says that the program that ran from 2011 until 2013 “very completely did not include the military’s research”. The institute says it “could not locate any trace of divulging confidential details” by Kudryavtsev’s group.

Human rights organizations see the same pattern.

Mr. Smirnov claims that through private talks, FSB officers have admitted to him that cases involving sharing secret hypersonic information were opened “to please the desires of the higher-ups”.

He believes that the FSB is trying to create the impression that spy agencies are scouring Russian information on missiles “to enhance the Putin’s ego” of Vladimir Putin.

The cases are part of an overall increase in cases of treason.

Sergei Davidis, who leads the work of supporting Russian prisoners of the political at Memorial human rights center, talks about an “atmosphere of spies and isolationism” particularly after Russia’s massive attack on Ukraine.

In a statement of Lithuania in which his group moved to following its ban from Russia Davidis says Davidis says he believes that the FSB eager to demonstrate its effectiveness, “builds up its reporting figures by fabricating instances”.

However, he believes there could be other motives behind the detention of scientists like contests for state contracts or perhaps an Kremlin message of discontent directed at all scientists who are involved in hypersonics.

Mr. Smirnov claims that the FSB often gives more relaxed sentences for suspects who confess and incriminate others.

Kudryavtsev received a plea deal in which he agreed to admit guilt and apologize to another person his wife, Olga.

He was not willing to. He died from lung cancer at the age of 2021 at the age of 77, just prior to his case going to trial.

The retired FSB Gen. Alexander Mikhailov says the FSB “must protect the privacy” of technological developments in the military.

He states “undoubtedly” the fact that there are “substantial reasons” for harsh sentences like the 14-year prison sentence handed down in the month of the month of May by one three ITAM scientists, Anatoly Maslov.

Gen Mikhailov says the current increase in cases of treason is a result of the growing democratic rights and freedoms during the 1990s.

He claims that this prompted a shift in attitudes from Soviet times, in which those who had access to secrets of the state were “thoroughly checked” as well as “understood the obligation” of divulging these secrets.

“Some people were in a flurry of conversation and leaks started to surface,” he adds.

For Mr. Galkin, it’s been more than an entire year since the mask-wearing agents came to his home. His family member claims that he was detained for the initial three months in isolation.

Tatyana is his wife. She claims she can call him via a partition made of glass. She has recently considered asking him to be detained too “because he is just sitting there, day in and day out”.

“I could request them to place myself in the exact same detention center. It’s not difficult You just need to suspect that someone is guilty of some sort of crime.”

Other scientists detained within Russia:

• Alexander Shiplyuk, 57, director of ITAM 2022, was arrested and waiting for the trial
• Alexander Kuranov, former director of St Petersburg Scientific Research Enterprise for Hypersonic Systems, arrested 2021 and jailed for seven years in April 2024.
• Roman Kovalyov, colleague of Vladimir Kudryavtsev at TsNIIMash was sentenced in the year 2020, to serve seven years prison, died in 2022.