The first of three Russian hypersonic missile scientists to be arrested on suspicion of treason will go on trial next week, the court handling the case said on Wednesday.
The criminal case against Anatoly Maslov, 76, will open in St Petersburg’s city court on June 1, the court said on its website.
He and two colleagues at the same Siberian institute, the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM), have all been arrested on suspicion of treason in the past year.
All three are specialists in hypersonics – a field of key importance to the development of Russia’s next generation of missiles, capable of flying at 10 times the speed of sound.
Maslov was detained last June in Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia and one of Russia’s main science hubs. Soon afterwards he was sent to Lefortovo prison in Moscow, a former KGB interrogation site.
