In Russia, a cruise missile designer was sentenced to two years in prison

A court in the Moscow region of Russia sentenced 33-year-old rocket engineer Sergei Korotky to two years and three months in prison, finding him guilty of «undue influence on critical information infrastructure».

According to «Mediazona», a criminal case against Korotky was initiated in June 2023. According to the investigation, the engineer, upon resigning from the Russian design bureau “Rainbow”, which specializes in the development and production of cruise missiles, “had a hostile attitude towards the enterprise and wished to harm it”, as a result of which he “connected to the file storage” and deleted a terabyte of information, in particular – «thermal calculations of research and development work in the field of advanced missile weapons».

Korotky himself stated in court that he did not have access to the system and could not harm the critical infrastructure, since he erased the data not from the «Rainbow» server, but from his personal computer, deleting the folder called «Motloh».

According to the convict, the reason for the criminal case against him is a conflict with the management of the design bureau. Allegedly, the management was extremely dissatisfied with the fact that Korotkyi in 2022 married a Turkish citizen who lives and works in Germany.

As a result, according to the engineer, the management, having received a corresponding instruction from the FSB, demanded that he resign of his own free will. Korotkyi was also banned from leaving Russia.