Putin's pet space project ‘tainted by massive theft’  

Russia's new Vostochny space centre has lost at least 11bn roubles (£133m; $172m) through theft and top officials have been jailed.

Russia's Federal Investigative Committee (SK) is said to be handling 12 more criminal cases linked to theft in this mega-project, which President Putin sees as a strategic priority for Russia, because of its huge commercial potential, according to BBC News.

Prof Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), told the BBC the Vostochny scandal highlighted the scale of corruption in Mr Putin's huge state bureaucracy.

"How can you deal with it without declaring war on your own elite? He's not prepared to do that. This dependency on mega-projects almost invariably creates massive opportunities for embezzlement," Mr Galeotti said.

Vostochny was Russia's first purpose-built civilian site for commercial space launches. The first launch took place in April 2016 and there have been four more since.

The vast new site is in Russia's far east, well away from big cities, which reduces the risk of rocket debris hitting any large urban centre. The site used to be a Soviet missile base called Svobodny.