President Donald Trump recently asserted that Russia had stolen plans for an American hypersonic missile

However, it appears that the Russian security services may have gained access to US hypersonic plans not for the purpose of stealing and using information contained within to develop Russian weapons, but rather to ascertain the extent to which data unique to Russian hypersonic weapons research programs the detained Russian scientists had access to had found its way into US hypersonic weapons development programs. Given the successful prosecution of the Russian scientists involved in the FPV-7 Space project run by VKI, it appears that the scientists, witting or unwitting, provided information above and beyond that which had been cleared to be released.

Moreover, the arrest and prosecution of these scientists indicates that rather than the “theft” of US hypersonic plans being a case of Russian reliance upon US research to further its hypersonic weapons capabilities, the opposite is true—it is the US which used its intelligence services to gain access to secret Russian information to further its own weapons research and development.