Summary: The Belgorod Regional Court rejected the appeal filed by the defense of Rustam Kaibyshev, director of the Research Institute of Materials Science and Innovative Technologies at the local state national research university (BelSU). As Kommersant was told by the court, the sentence of two and a half years in a general regime penal colony was left unchanged. The appellate court only clarified that the payment of a 500 thousand rubles fine must be executed independently.

Details: 62-year-old Professor Rustam Kaibyshev was found guilty of embezzlement (Part 4, Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) in July of this year. As the court established, in 2017–2018, Professor Kaibyshev, while conducting applied scientific research funded from the federal budget, provided the customer — the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia — with false information about the work he had completed. According to the investigation’s assessment, the damage amounted to 14 million rubles. The scientist did not admit guilt. After the verdict was issued, Kaibyshev was taken into custody.

T-invariant writes: “Kaibyshev’s case closely resembles the case of RAS Corresponding Member Oleg Kabov, which we covered in detail here. Both scientists conducted projects within the framework of the federal targeted program ‘Research and Development’ in 2014–2018, and the charges were based on additional expert assessments by the same experts (including Professor I.I. Chernov of MEPhI and Candidate of Economic Sciences E.V. Berezina). According to academician Alexey Khokhlov, their assessment methodology is ‘completely unsuitable for scientific research,’ and the level of competence of the experts is not comparable to Kaibyshev’s scientific level.”

Rustam Kaibyshev is a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, professor, and author of hundreds of scientific papers.

Sources: Kommersant, RIA Novosti, T-invariant.