Russian rocket scientists accused of selling hypersonic secrets to China
The director of a major Russian scientific institute, arrested along with two other hypersonic missile technology experts on suspected treason, is accused of betraying secrets to China, Reuters made public on the basis of inside information.
Alexander Shiplyuk, head of the Khristianovich Siberian Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM), is suspected of handing over classified material at a scientific conference in China in 2017. The 56-year-old maintains his innocence and insists the information in question was unclassified and they were freely available online.
“He is convinced that the information was not classified and that he is innocent,” one of the people said.
The nature of the allegations against the director of ITAM, who was arrested last August, has not been previously reported. The China connection would make Shiplyuk the latest in a string of Russian scientists arrested in recent years for allegedly betraying secrets to Beijing.
When asked about the allegations against ITAM experts and previous cases of treason linked to China, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the security services are attentive to possible cases of "betrayal of the fatherland".
“It's a very important job,” he added. “It goes on steadily and it's hard to talk about any kind of trend here.”
The FSB security service did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry, when asked about allegations that Beijing has targeted Russian scientists to obtain sensitive research, said Sino-Russian relations are based on "non-alignment, non-confrontation and non-targeting third parts".
President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Russia is a world leader in hypersonic missiles, cutting-edge weapons capable of delivering payloads up to 10 times the speed of sound to pierce air defense systems.
Also for economic reasons, Moscow has given a significant part of its military technologies to China which is traditionally a large buyer of Soviet technology first and then Russian. Fighters, tanks and missiles are themselves derived from equivalent Russian versions purchased under license for reproduction. However, the technological advance of Beijing is making the purchase of Russian weapons less and less interesting in relation to internal development.
Then there are secret and highly strategic technologies, such as those linked to hypersonic missiles, which Moscow has no intention of giving away, at least in the immediate future, because they are the basis of Russian technology in the sector. So economic reasons and military strategy explain these accusations of espionage in favor of a country commonly considered a friend of Moscow. But the friendship ends when a strategic sector such as military technology is threatened.
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The article Russian rocket scientists accused of selling hypersonic secrets to China comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/scienziati-missilistici-russi-accusati-di-aver-venduto-segreti-sullipersonico-alla-cina/ on Wed, 24 May 2023 18:13:08 +0000.