The man accused of murdering the creator of Sputnik V received a 14-year prison sentence.

Moscow's Khoroshevsky District COURT sentenced Alexey Zmanovsky, accused of murdering scientist Andrey Botikov, one of the creators of the Sputnik V vaccine, to 14 years in a maximum security penal colony. The press service of Moscow's courts of general jurisdiction reported this on their TELEGRAM channel.

He was found guilty under Part 1 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code (murder), paragraph “g” of Part 3 of Article and paragraph “c” of Part 2 of Article 158 of the Criminal Code (theft from a bank account causing significant damage).

The court added the unserved portion of the sentence from an earlier verdict of the Kaluga District Court to the sentence. In addition to 14 years in prison, the defendant was sentenced to a fine of 80,000 rubles.

Andrei Botikov was murdered on March 3, 2023. An RBC source reported that the scientist was strangled. The murder occurred in Botikov's apartment in northwest Moscow during an argument with his guest. The Moscow office of the Investigative Committee clarified that "the 29-year-old young man had an argument with his host and strangled him with a belt."

Alexey Zmanovsky was arrested the same day. According to the Investigative Committee, he had previously been charged with a serious crime. Zmanovsky pleaded guilty.

Botikov worked as a senior researcher at the Gamaleya Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology. This research institution had developed a vaccine againstcovid-19 "Sputnik V", which has become one of the main ones in RUSSIA.

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Botikov is a co-author of the vaccine patent. He was among the scientists who received an award from President Vladimir Putin for the drug's development—in June 2021, he was awarded the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland," 2nd Class.