User:Bryan See/Akademgorodok

Akademgorodok (Академгородо́к, literally meaning Academic Town) is the educational and scientific centre of Siberia, located about 10 km west of the Science town Koltsovo. Along with Skolkovo, it is regarded as the Russian version of Silicon Valley, which is ostensibly part of Vladimir Putin's efforts to promote Russian science, tech and innovation abroad. However, some anti-science moves made by the Russian government made it obvious that such breakthrough in science and tech in Russia proved elusive as the Russian state, which is Putin's main vehicle for the nation's resurgence, often stifles growth and smothers new ideas.

Tion controversy and arrest
In 2016, Dmitri Trubitsyn of the Russian company Tion, along with his colleagues, became a victim for an attack by government officials who "don't understand anything about physics, don't understand anything about chemistry and don't understand anything about biology," according to Anton Latkin, a computer programmer who has known Trubitsyn since boyhood science clubs. He was accused of risking the lives of hospital patients, and trying to lift profits, by upgrading the purifiers so they would consume less electricity, all without state regulators certifying the changes. It is a case that highlights the tensions between Putin's aspirations for a dynamic private sector and his determination to enhance the powers of Russia's security apparatus. Using a 2014 law meant to protect Russians from counterfeit medicine, investigators from the Federal Security Service, the post-Soviet KGB, and other agencies have accused Trubitsyn of leading a criminal conspiracy to, essentially, invent, innovate and commercialize too much, too fast and too freely.

Trubitsyn and his colleagues learned that their competitors were telling hospitals about the dangerous nature of their company's air purifiers which were being investigated by Roszdravnadzor, a state agency that regulates medical equipment. State television then broadcast a report accusing the company of jeopardizing the health of hospital patients, and state hospitals began removing Tion devices. The company was approached by the regulatory agency and said that it had changed its design and removed a supplementary filtering device that laboratory tests had shown was redundant and wasted electricity. The company then amended its registration documents and thought the matter was over, but armed police officers showed up in June to arrest Trubitsyn and search for evidence of what later court documents described as a "conspiracy" to produce counterfeit medical supplies. However, no co-conspirators have been named, but a conspiracy charge allows prosecutors to seek more jail time.

Trubitsyn's troubles were seen as the fault of unscrupulous operators able to manipulate law-enforcement agencies to wipe out competitors, as well as to inflict a grave blow to the community's sense of security. In principle, anyone can fall into this situation as it can happen to anybody. Everyone has some sort of skeleton in their closet, but they can always find something to throw you in jail for.