Russia arrests hypersonic missile scientist Alexander Shiplyuk on treason charge: Report

Another top Russian scientist, Dr Alexander Shiplyuk, was arrested on treason charges, TASS News agency reported on Friday. Citing the institute’s scientific director Vasily Fomin, the media report said the scientist has been associated with the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Russian Academy of Sciences as a director and has been arrested on treason charges. According to Fomin, his colleague and the top Russian hypersonic missile scientist, allegedly linked with a chief research fellow of the institute who was arrested on the same charges last month. "Investigative activities were held in the institute. They are linked with our director, Alexander Shiplyuk, who has been arrested. He is faced with the same charges as Anatoly Maslov, a chief research fellow of the institute, who was arrested earlier," the Russian news agency quoted Fomin as saying. 

Further, Fomin revealed that Shiplyuk was taken to Moscow’s Lefortovo detention centre. Notably, Alexander Shiplyuk is an acclaimed scientist in Russia who has a specialization in high-speed aero gas dynamics and experimental research of gas flows.

Earlier a top Russian scientist, who had stage four pancreatic cancer, died merely two days after he was arrested on charges of spying for China. The 54-year-old scientist, Dmitry Kolker, had cancer and was treated at a hospital in Siberia. According to the social media post of his daughter, Alina Mironova, the members of the Kremlin’s FSB security service dragged him from the hospital despite knowing her father had cancer and could not even eat on his own. His family said that the scientist, who was a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, head of the laboratory of quantum optical technologies at the Institute of Laser Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Novosibirsk State University, was being fed through a tube and could not even move. 

Another scientist arrested from his "deathbed"

Speaking to Latvia-based Russian news outlet The Insider on Friday, July 1, his son Maxim Kolker said they had no information about his father's condition after the FSB security agents detained his ailing father. According to Maxim, the Kremlin agents took his father in order to testify against Sergey Bagayev, Director Of Research at the Institute of Laser Physics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Alexei Taichenachev, the institute's Director. He said that his father had repeatedly told the security personnel that he did not know anything about the alleged large-scale fraud in which Bagayev and Taichenachev were allegedly involved. According to Maxim, his father was on his deathbed when he was arrested.

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