Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported Friday that the director of a Russian lab working on the Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic missiles, a weapon that President Vladimir Putin claims gives Russia a strategic advantage, has been arrested on suspicion of treason. .
These complaints were allegedly made known by the director of the Russian laboratory himself. On Friday, TASS cited colleagues of Andrei Shiplyuk who claimed that the laboratory had been searched.
The news agency also reported that an unidentified source said Shiplyuk had been transferred to Lefortovo prison in Moscow. Both of these pieces of information were published by TASS. Putin recently stated that Russian hypersonic missiles are the best in the world and that they will be deployed in greater numbers in the coming months.
These supersonic projectiles can travel at speeds up to nine times the speed of sound. According to the lab’s website, Andrei Shiplyuk is head of the ultrasonics lab at the Novosibirsk Institute of Theoretical and Applied Engineering.
In recent years, he coordinated research to advance the development of hypersonic missile systems. TASS reported a month ago that another Russian scientist working at Shiplyuk’s lab had also been arrested.
The institute is located in Novosibirsk’s Akademgorodok Science Park, which was established during the Soviet era. Novosibirsk is located approximately 2,800 kilometers (1,750 miles) east of Moscow.
