Russian leader Vladimir Putin has allegedly jailed one of his top hypersonic scientists for sharing secrets with the West – despite having permission.
Professor Anatoly Gubanov is the latest academic to be jailed by the Kremlin. The 66-year-old has allegedly been jailed for 12 years for high treason.
The physicist is an expert in hypersonic aviation technology and high-speed missiles. He has reportedly been sent to a maximum security jail after a secret trial.
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Before his incarceration, Gubanov was head of the secretive Aerodynamics of Aircraft and Rocket Department at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI) in Zhukovsky, Moscow Oblast.
A subordinate of Valery Golubkin, 70, was also jailed in June for 12 years. Three other hypersonic missile scientists are also currently on trial facing treason charges.
The father of five had been given permission three times to share details of Russian research with a project coordinated by the European Space Agency called Hexafly-INT - High-Speed Experimental FLY Vehicles International. Including specialists from Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Australia.
The Perviy Otdel human rights project said that the material involving high-speed passenger aircraft running on hydrogen fuel had been shared with Western scientists only after it was cleared by three specialised Russian commissions prior to submission. None of these commissions - overseen by the FSB security service - found state secrets in the reports.
The case is seen as evidence of the Putin regime’s increasing paranoia toward scientific cooperation with foreign countries. Now senior scientists are warning the threat of treason will have devastating effects on young researchers.
Gubanov is from a dynasty of scientists which included his father-in-law Professor Leonid Shkadov, a leading Soviet aviation designer. Two of his daughters and one son - all physicists - also work at TsAGI.
Interfax says the professor is suspected of passing “information consisting of state secrets abroad” or committing “other acts aimed against the security of Russia in the interests of a foreign state, organisation or representatives”. When he was held colleagues told Interfax they were “surprised” by the arrest of a man “respected by his students”.
Another hypersonic scientist Alexander Shiplyuk, 56, was held in a swoop by the FSB counterintelligence agency in Novosibirsk, Siberia where he heads the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. Professor Anatoly Maslov, 75, a pioneer of hypersonic technologies, was also held on suspicion of treason.
Acclaimed laser scientist Dr Dmitry Kolker, 54, died last year two days after he was seized from his cancer hospital bed and shut away in one of Russia’s most notorious jails as a “spy”. Ilya Sachkov, 37, founder of pioneering Group-IB, once awarded by Putin, was jailed for 14 years for ‘passing secrets to foreign spies’.
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