Valery Golubkin: Top Russian Hypersonic Scientist Jailed In Moscow For High Treason

One of Russia’s top hypersonic scientists was jailed this Monday, June 26, after being charged with high treason.

The 71-year-old Professor Valery Golubkin was detained in 2020. He was subsequently accused of passing sensitive documents to a NATO country, which was not named at the time.

As a result of today’s conviction by a judge in Moscow City Court, Golubkin faces 12 years at a bleak maximum security penal colony, according to Mediazona.

It is now believed that the professor handed the alleged documents to Dutch scientists, containing top secret information about aerodynamics.

Golubkin was considered one of the world’s leading authorities on hypersonic technology. At the time of his arrest, he was working at TsAGI, the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute, in the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

Being accused of passing such sensitive documents and then being jailed for ‘high treason’ seems very far-fetched. While engaged in theoretical developments, it is thought very unlikely that Golubkin had access to any form of sensitive information.

He published in excess of 120 papers in the field of aerodynamics. It would be suggested that this would never have given him access to top-secret state documents and projects. At the most, he would have possibly had only third-form access to such information.

During his trial – which was held behind closed doors – Golubkin insisted that any information he might have shared to anybody would have first been cleared by those in charge and at no time did he handle ‘sensitive’ documents.

‘He does not admit guilt. He is a theoretical physicist, he explained to me what he was doing, [concerning] theoretical physics. He did not have access to state secrets’, said his lawyer, Alexander Timoshenko.

The judge listed material evidence that was included in the case. These were, in particular, models of hypersonic vehicles and the visiting card of Golubkin’s co-author of scientific works, the Dutch scientist Johann Stillant.

As emphasised by the defence, all documents were checked three times by specialists before being sent – they did not find state secrets in the reports.

In December 2020, Anatoly Gubanov, one of Golubkin’s supervisors, was also arrested for high treason. They are just two of many top academics who the Russian security services (FSB) have decided to detain over the last couple of years.