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Four Ukrainian marine biologists who were under investigation by their
country’s security services for sharing information with Western scientists had
the charges against them dropped this week. Sergei Piontkovsky and his
colleagues were involved in projects funded by Western agencies to study
bioluminescence in the oceans, which can in theory reveal the location of submarines
(New Scientist, 20 November 1999, p 4).
After their arrest last October, the researchers were charged with currency offences. Marine
scientists around the world lobbied the Ukrainian government to drop the
charges. Piontkovsky has now had his passport returned and plans to leave
Ukraine for Britain with his family as soon as possible.