A Russian academic has been jailed for treason after being accused of betraying the motherland.
This week, Anatoly Maslov, a 77-year-old scientist was jailed for 14 years at a closed doors trial in a St Petersburg Court.
Held in pre-trial custody for almost two years, Malsov was accused of giving Germany top-secret data related to Russia’s hypersonic missile programme - despite not having actually worked on the project.
Malsov denied the charges, even though a guilty plea would likely see him served a shorter sentence. His supporters say that the 14-year ruling is a death sentence for the 77-year-old, who suffers from a heart condition.
A Russian academic has been jailed for treason after being accused of betraying the motherland
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He is one of at least a dozen scientists whose theories have helped develop much of Putin’s arsenal that has been arrested on treason charges as part of the Russian leader’s “spy mania”.
What's more, the majority of the academics that have been arrested are believed to have never had access to state secrets.
“These are scientists who study fundamental physical processes. They are not developing weapons, they are researching how, for example, a certain metal behaves at a certain temperature, at a certain speed, “ said Yevgeny Smirnov, a lawyer with Pervy Otdel, which translates as Department One, a legal group that helps people accused of treason in Russia
“Their research can be used in the construction of trains, ships and airplanes, as well as missiles,” Smirnov told The Times.
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Anatoly Malsov has denied the charges
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The accusations are understood to have stemmed back to the participation of academics in international research and projects that were approved by Moscow before their break from the West.
Smirnov implied that the arrests, which were carried out by the FSB - a state security service similar to Stalin’s secret police - were made in hopes of deterring other Russian scientists from speaking with westerners.
He added: “The [Kremlin’s] security services are trying to show that every other country in the world wants to steal Russia’s weapon secrets.”
Scientists in Russia have been left frozen in fear amid the wave of arrests. One of Maslov’s colleagues said in an open letter: “We simply don’t understand how to continue our work.
Malsov is one of at least a dozen scientists - whose theories have helped develop much of Putin’s arsenal - that has been arrested on treason charges
Reuters“Any article or report could become grounds for treason charges.”
Other academics fallen victim to the treason charge include Dmitry Koller, a laser specialist who was charged with disclosing state secrets to China in 2018.
Kolker, who had late-stage pancreatic cancer, died two days after his arrest, with his son lamenting: “They didn’t even let our family say goodbye.”
Scientists are not the only Russians that have been accused of treason - with 39 people convicted last year, more than double the year prior.
One of those is Vladimir Kara-Murza, a dual British-Russian citizen, who is currently serving 25 years in a political prison after they condemned Russian actions in Ukraine.
