Russia Sentences Men for Sharing Bulava Secrets: Official

Jun. 20, 2012 – Defense news (AFP)

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — Russia on June 20 sentenced two professors from an engineering university to 12½ and 12 years for handing over information about a new intercontinental missile to China, an official said.

“Yevgeny Afanasyev was sentenced to 12½ years for treason, and Svyatoslav Bobyshev to 12 years in a high-security penal colony for complicity in treason,” a court official said.

The men, both professors at the Voyenmekh Baltic State Technical University in St. Petersburg, were arrested in March 2010 on charges of high treason and espionage.

The men were accused of handing over the information on the Bulava, Russia’s latest submarine-launched ballistic missile, to Chinese intelligence.

The intercontinental nuclear-capable missile was developed to replace Russia’s Soviet-era stock. The project suffered numerous failed launches over the past decade but was approved late last year after several successful test firings.

In May, a worker from a Russian weapons plant in the Urals was sentenced to eight years in jail for handing over information on the Bulava project to foreign intelligence.