Moscow City Court sentenced MAI associate professor to 20 years in prison for treason
Associate Professor of the Department of Rocket Engines of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) Alexei Vorobyov will spend the next 20 years in the colony.
The Moscow City Court sentenced him to this term. In addition, the scientist was assigned a further restriction of freedom for a year and a half. During this time, he must comply with the restrictions established by the court, and also appear when summoned to the criminal executive inspectorate. Vorobyov was also ordered to pay a fine of 1 million rubles. The scientist was found guilty on several counts: Art. 275 “High treason”, part 1 of Art. 30, part 3 of Art. 189 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Illegal export from the Russian Federation or transfer of raw materials, scientific and technical information, illegal performance of work that can be used to create weapons of mass destruction”, part 3 of Art. 30, part 3 of Art. 226.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Smuggling of potent, poisonous, poisonous, explosive, radioactive substances, radiation sources, nuclear materials, firearms”. The trial took place behind closed doors, the materials of the criminal case are classified.
Vorobiev – candidate of technical sciences. The MAI website contains links to his scientific articles – they are mainly devoted to rocket engines.
Vorobyov is not the only teacher at the Moscow University who became a defendant in a criminal case under Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. In April of this year, Valery Golubkin, a professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), was arrested. He is accused of treason, the scientist himself does not admit his guilt. In addition to working at one of the leading technical universities in Russia, he taught at the Zhukovsky Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI). The 69-year-old scientist was arrested until June 12. According to the press secretary of the Lefortovo court, Daria Rozmakhova, the case was not labeled “secret”. The professor who dealt with the problems of hypersonic technologies and gave a course in high-speed aerodynamics did not have access to state secrets, as noted earlier at MIPT. “At MIPT he teaches for fourth-year students as an external part-time worker and does not participate in scientific work. I did not have access to information constituting a state secret,” TASS quoted the press service of the educational institution as quoted by TASS. The institute clarified that “at Phystech he only read lectures once or twice a month at three hundredths of the rate.” TASS, citing a source, noted that Golubkin is a colleague and co-author of a scientific article by physicist Gubanov, who is also accused of treason. But, according to the interlocutor of the agency, they are held in different criminal cases. Physicist Anatoly Gubanov, like Golubkin, is an employee of MIPT and TsAGI. This teacher was arrested several months before Golubkin. Sources of RIA Novosti reported that, according to the investigation, Gubanov transmitted secret information about a supersonic civil aircraft to one of the European countries. On January 29, the Lefortovo court extended his arrest until May 3. The meetings on this case are held behind closed doors. Olga Dinze, the lawyer of the accused physicist, previously said that during interrogation, Gubanov partially pleaded guilty to treason, but then refused to testify. The lawyer believes that her client could have been misled during the interrogation by the FSB. Anatoly Gubanov's father-in-law, Leonid Shkadov, was one of the leaders of the aviation industry in the Soviet Union. Gubanov himself has been working at TsAGI since 1979. The scientist specializes in high-speed aircraft. Three of the five children of the physicist accused of treason followed in his father's footsteps – they work in the aviation field. It should be noted that according to the statistics of the judicial department at the Supreme Court, the annual number of those convicted under the article on treason in Russia is four to six people.
