ST. PETERSBURG, October 2 – Novosti. Petersburg scientist Valery Mitko, accused of treason, died at the age of 82, according to the human rights project “First Department”, whose lawyers defended the accused.
Earlier, in early February, the Leningrad Regional Court extended Mitko’s preventive measure in the form of house arrest, under which he had been held since February 2020. As reported, he was charged under article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (high treason) and faced up to 20 years in prison. According to the defense, Mitko is charged with transferring materials from the state secret to the special services of China during a trip to this country. The case has been classified as “top secret”, so the plot is not disclosed.
“Today, at the age of 81, our client Valery Mitko, the president of the Arctic Academy of Sciences, one of the country’s leading specialists in hydroacoustics, a polar explorer and a patriot who dreamed that Russia would reign in the Arctic, died,” informs the Telegram channel of the First Department project.
It is specified that recently Mitko was often sent to the hospital. According to the defense, he was unable to walk, sit and care for his wife (a bedridden patient).
According to the information of the Association of Public Organizations of Navy Veterans, Valery Mitko is a captain of the first rank of the reserve, the head of the hydroacoustics department of the Naval Academy since 1990.
He was born in 1941 in Chernigov , graduated from the Higher Naval School of Radio Electronics named after Popov, Naval Academy, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor. He served in the Pacific Fleet as the head of the radio engineering service – the commander of the communications combat unit of a surface ship and a nuclear submarine.
Mitko is a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Engineering, academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, vice-president – chairman of the hydroacoustics section of the East European Association of Acoustics and a member of other associations.