A Moscow court has sentenced prominent Russian hypersonic flight scientist Alexander Shiplyuk to 15 years in a maximum-security prison on treason charges, according to the independent news website Mediazona.
Shiplyuk, 57, led Siberia’s Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics and was among three institute members arrested between 2022 and 2023 on suspicion of treason. Reports suggest that Shiplyuk was accused of sharing classified information during a scientific conference in China in 2017.
The Moscow City Court found Shiplyuk guilty of treason and imposed a 15-year prison sentence. He denied the charges, arguing that the information he was accused of disclosing was publicly accessible online.
Earlier this year, Shiplyuk’s colleague, Anatoly Maslov, was also convicted of treason and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Another scientist, Alexander Kuranov, who headed a research institute in St. Petersburg, received a seven-year sentence in April. Kuranov reportedly secured a reduced sentence by testifying against Maslov. According to the BBC’s Russian service, Shiplyuk refused to accept a plea deal.
Shiplyuk’s trial was conducted behind closed doors due to the case’s sensitive nature, with prosecutors initially pushing for a 20-year sentence.
Treason convictions in Russia have increased since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
According to the BBC’s Russian service, 11 Russian scientists working on hypersonic flight have been jailed or arrested since President Vladimir Putin introduced a new generation of weapons in 2018.
