Russian scientist Dmitry Kolker was reported to have died on Saturday, two days after he was arrested in Novosibirsk, taken from the ward where he was receiving treatment for stage 4 cancer, and taken to Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison.
Kolker, 54, was arrested by Russia’s FSB security service Thursday on charges of collaborating with Chinese agents, likely during his lecture visits to China. The government has revealed few details about the case.
Kolker’s family insisted on his innocence and protested the cruelty of removing the man from the hospital ward, predicting that he would not last long in the brutal Lefortovo facility. A Moscow court has ordered his imprisonment for at least two months while the charges against him are being investigated. He faced a sentence of up to 20 years for high treason.
Those predictions proved correct, as the family received a brief telegram informing them of his death on Sunday.
“He passed away yesterday,” Kolker’s lawyer, Alexander Fedulov, said on Sunday. “Tomorrow we will file a complaint against his arrest.”
The last contact I had with my father was at 6:15 pm on the flight to Moscow. Saying goodbye, he said, “Maxim Kolker’s son He said after his death was announced.
The investigator said conditions were good and there was a refrigerator in the prison cell. What refrigerator? A man cannot eat, he is fed intravenously. He vomits constantly. Maxim Kolker complained that people do not walk around in such a situation.
“The FSB killed my father, they knew about his condition, but they took him out of the hospital. Thank you, my country!!! His family did not have permission to say goodbye to him” He said In a bitter post on social media on Sunday.
Pancreatic cancer stage IV rule. Kolker’s daughter, Alina Mironova, said facing such a ruling not at home, but within the walls of a detention center without proper medical care is the worst thing that can happen to anyone.
The Siberian Times He noted that in addition to his scientific achievements, Kolker was also a musical pianist:
Novosibirsk scientist Dmitry Kolker, withdrew from the hospital at 7 am on June 30, was arrested on suspicion of state treason, was flown to Moscow and died on July 2. They killed my father. Ibn Dmitri said: Thank you for your country. Video of Dmitriy playing Dietrich Buxtehude Tokata in Dmitriy in 2018 pic.twitter.com/RZhM7ujZN8
– The Siberian Times (@siberian_times) 3 July 2022
Kolker’s colleague ‘Putin sees spies everywhere’ Tell The United kingdom daily Mail. Senior scholars are formally urged to cooperate with top foreign partners [and] did that. Now they are accused of espionage.”
Radio Free Europe (RFE) mentioned On Sunday, another scientist from Siberia, 75-year-old Anatoly Maslov from the Institute of Theoretical and Practical Mechanics of the Siberian Academy of Sciences, was detained in Lefortovo in connection with the same investigation.
The daily Mail He noted that Kolker was an expert in laser technology, which has some military applications, while his fellow Siberian scientist detained Maslov is an expert in hypersonic aircraft who has worked with German scientists and the American airline giant, Boeing, in addition to the Chinese. Russian President Vladimir Putin has placed great emphasis on hypersonic missiles as a key to maintaining military parity with the United States and NATO.
Russia and China appear to be allies in an increasingly close relationship, which makes the sinister treatment of a scientist vaguely accused of collaborating with the Chinese somewhat inappropriate.
The fate of Kolker and Maslov may serve as a warning to Russian researchers who are tempted by Chinese initiatives such as the Thousand Talents Program, an aggressive Chinese scheme to recruit foreign mental forces that has led to numerous investigations into espionage and intellectual property theft in the United States. Many of those investigations involved American academics who engaged in behavior similar to what Kolker was widely accused of, such as collaborating with Chinese researchers or even holding positions at Chinese universities.
