Two more Russian hypersonic scientists are convicted of treason
by Mark Trevelyan
May 5 (Reuters) – Two Russian physicists involved in research supporting the development of hypersonic missiles were found guilty of treason and sentenced to 12-1/2 years each in a penal colony, state media reported on Tuesday.
The trial of Valery Zvegintsev and Vladislav Galkin was the latest in a series of treason cases filed against scientists investigating super-high flight speeds.
President Vladimir Putin has boasted that Russia is the world leader in the production of hypersonic missiles, which it used in the war with Ukraine. The weapons are capable of traveling at up to 10 times the speed of sound to penetrate air defense systems.
Zvegintsev, 82, was a leading scientist at the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM) in Novosibirsk, Siberia.
Two of his colleagues there, Anatoly Maslov and Alexander Shiplyuk, were sentenced to 14 and 15 years in prison respectively in 2024.
Galkin, 71, worked at another Siberian university and wrote articles together with Zvegintsev and Shiplyuk.
Over the past decade, Russia has filed at least 10 treason cases against scientists working in the field of hypersonics; This study involved flying at speeds exceeding Mach 5 (3,800 mph, or 6,115 km/h).
The men have not admitted guilt, and supporters said their publications and travel to international scientific conferences were pre-approved by Russian security services.
Colleagues of the arrested researchers at ITAM said in a rare open letter in 2023 that the men were innocent and that the cases filed against them harmed Russian science and deterred young academics from entering the field.
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
