On Tuesday, a Moscow court sentenced a renowned physicist to 15 years in a colony after finding him guilty of "treason". This is the latest prison sentence for a scientist accused of sharing state secrets.

A Moscow City Court found scientist Alexander Shipliuk guilty of „treason“ and „sentenced him to 15 years in prison“, the court was quoted as saying by the TASS news agency.

Several high-profile scientists have been arrested in recent years, at least three of whom have been detained since Moscow launched its offensive in Ukraine in 2022.

A. Shipliuk, director of the S. Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, was arrested in the summer of 2022 and has been held in Moscow's Lefortovo prison since then.

His colleague at the same institute, Anatoly Maslov, also arrested around the same time, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in May this year, also on charges of treason.

TASS reported that Shiplyuk was found guilty of two counts of high treason by a court in a closed trial, with very little publicity about the case.

Russian media reported that Shipliuk was accused of passing information on Russian hypersonic weapons to foreign agents. According to TASS, the 57-year-old scientist did not admit guilt.

In May, his 77-year-old colleague A. Maslov was also convicted in a closed trial. Russian media reported that he had been accused of using secret data related to

transmitting to German intelligence information about Russia's hypersonic missile programme.

At least three other scientists from Novosibirsk, a science centre in Russia, have been arrested since 2022. Moscow has a long history of putting pressure on scientists and has arrested a number of academics, a trend that has intensified since Russia attacked Ukraine.