The French journal Revue de la filière mathématiques (RMS) has published a scientific article by imprisoned mathematician Azat Miftakhov. The work, titled “Chui's conjecture in Hilbert space,” opens the journal's June-August 2026 issue.
Miftakhov worked on the article for about four months while in prison in Dimitrovgrad, where he had no access to the internet or scientific literature. The topic was proposed by French mathematician Bernard Randé, a member of the Solidarité FreeAzat association. In a reply letter, Miftakhov said he not only solved the problem but also obtained a more general result. Randé helped prepare the work for publication in French.
This is at least the third scientific work by Miftakhov published after his arrest. Previously, in 2020 and 2021, his articles appeared in Polish and Italian mathematical journals.
Miftakhov, a former graduate student at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University, was arrested in 2019 in connection with an attack on the office of the United Russia party. In September 2023, he was detained again on charges of “justifying terrorism” and sentenced to four years in prison. He is currently held in the Polar Owl colony in the village of Kharp, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
In May, Miftakhov spoke about the torture he was subjected to upon arrival at the colony by its staff and inmates. The Labytnangi court ruled that the investigator's failure to open a criminal case into the torture was unlawful and ordered the violations to be remedied.