In 1998, he became the head of the subdivision for Military-Technical and Military-Economic Policy at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, where he worked before he was arrested for treason on accusations he had given information to a British company, although he had no access to classified documentation as a civilian researcher.

As of 2018, Sutyagin is a Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London.

[5] In October 1999, the Russian Federal Security Service detained Sutyagin and brought charges of espionage against him.

Sutyagin acknowledged working with the company, but he said that all information about nuclear submarines he disclosed was based on material in the open literature and that, not having a security clearance, he never had access to classified sources.

[7] Sutyagin reports that he had been asked to sign a pardon request falsely admitting guilt as early as 2005.