TALLINN, Estonia—When Maksim Kolker’s phone rang at 6 a.m., and the voice on the other end said his father had been arrested, he thought it was a scam to extort money.
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking at a news conference following a meeting of the State Council at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 22, 2022. Treason cases were rare in Russia 30 years ago, with only a handful brought annually. In the last decade and especially since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine, however, the number has soared, along with espionage prosecutions.
These cases stand out from the crackdown on dissent that has reached unprecedented levels under President Vladimir Putin. They are investigated almost exclusively by the powerful Federal Security Service, or FSB, with specific charges and evidence not always revealed. Two years earlier, the legal definition of treason was expanded to include providing vaguely defined “assistance” to foreign countries or organizations, effectively exposing to prosecution anyone in contact with foreigners.
The case drew national attention and public outrage. Russia at the time denied its troops were involved in eastern Ukraine, and many pointed out that the case against Davydova contradicted that narrative. The charges against her were eventually dropped. “It’s a very good cautionary tale case for them that journalists shouldn’t write anything about the defense sector,” his fiancee and fellow reporter Ksenia Mironova told AP.
He stressed that all the arrested scientists were civilians, and that “they practically never go after military scientists.” Nevertheless, FSB officers yanked the 54-year-old physicist from his hospital bed in 2022 and flew him to Moscow, to the Lefortovo Prison, his son said. Other scientists working on hypersonics, a field with important applications for missile development, also were arrested on treason charges in recent years. One of them, Anatoly Maslov, 77, was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison in May.
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Treason and espionage cases are rising in Russia since the war in Ukraine beganTALLINN, Estonia (AP) — When Maksim Kolker’s phone rang at 6 a.m., and the voice on the other end said his father had been arrested, he thought it was a scam to extort money.
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Scientists, a journalist and even a bakery worker are among those convicted of treason in RussiaTALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Over the past decade, Russia has seen a sharp increase in treason and espionage cases.
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