Hypersonic missile expert held on suspicion of treason

ONE of Russia’s leading hypersonic missile scientists has been detained on suspicion of treason by police in Siberia.

Alexander Shiplyuk may have been working on President Vladimir Putin’s top-secret missile programme when he was arrested.

He was a director at the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics and is the third researcher in Novosibirsk to be arrested for treason in the past six weeks.

Police detained Anatoly Maslov, a physicist specialising in aerodynamics, and Dmitry Kolker, a maths professor and laser specialist, for allegedly passing state secrets to China in June. They were flown to the 19th-century Lefortovo interrogation centre in Moscow.

Kolker, who had been receiving treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer, died within two days of arrival.

The Tass news agency reported that after his arrest intelligence agents searched the offices of Mr Shiplyuk, a career scientist who worked his way up from trainee to be appointed a director of the institute in 2015.

“There were operational events at the institute,” said Vasily Fomin, head of the institute. “This was connected with our director Alexander Nikolaevich Shiplyuk.

He was arrested. He is charged with the same thing as Maslov, treason.”

Online, Mr Shiplyuk is quoted discussing coating for hypersonic missiles and how science can be used to help update the Russian military in a project called Army-2020.

One photo showed the 55-year-old posing next to a tank.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has stalled but Mr Putin still boasts that his new hypersonic Zircon anti-aircraft carrier missile is “unstoppable” and that a new nuclear missile called Satan-2, which is armed with 14 warheads, is the most dangerous weapon in the world.

Russian officials have said that both missiles will be operational by the end of the year.

There have been several arrests over the past couple of months among topranking Russian officials and scientists.

Many have been charged with treason or insulting the Russian army, a euphemism for criticising Mr Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Since 2000, several leading Russian scientists have also been arrested for handing state secrets to China.

Some of those, like Mr Kolker, claimed that they had been accused of treason just for giving a lecture in China.

Russian missile technology is considered amongst the best in the world.