For screenwriters lacking inspiration, Mikhail Kokorich is an ideal prey. First the physical: a bull’s neck, a wrestler’s build, a computer under the skull. And then the story, which could appear in the catalog of Netflix series. All the ingredients are there. A dose of incredible, another of tragedy and a good shot of betrayal, all against a backdrop of technological battles and geopolitical wars. Persona non grata in Russia, his country of birth, where he is listed as a notorious opponent of Vladimir Putin, this high-flying physicist fled the United States and the golden shores of Silicon Valley two years ago where he had made his fortune to take refuge in Switzerland, in Payerne, on the quiet shores of Lake Neuchâtel.
And here he is again today in France with an extraordinary promise. Revolutionizing aviation. Just that. To open the doors of France, he found the magic formula: to give birth within fifteen years to the “super-Concorde”, a hypersonic plane flying on hydrogen, instead of the good old and very polluting kerosene. A real technological breakthrough that would theoretically make it possible to connect Paris to Singapore in… barely three hours! Before that, and to ensure the good graces of the French government, he proposed above all to open his technology to the French army. Project code name: “Destinus”.
To meet Mikhail Kokorich is first of all to attend a course in applied physics. In his slick design offices not far from Montparnasse station, the forty-year-old embarks on a technical demonstration, surfing on the “slides” of his PowerPoint presentation. With machine-gun speed, the engineer takes over the start-up. Specification of its technology, characteristic of the fuel, magic of the engines including a ramjet… We especially remember that the man wants to fly a commercial plane one day at Mach 5 where the Concorde had barely exceeded Mach 2 fifty years ago! In Switzerland, the entrepreneur and his teams have developed two demonstrators, sort of large unmanned drones, which have already flown at a speed lower than that of sound. The supersonic stage is scheduled for 2024. “All aerospace technologies are dual, that is to say they can have a military application”, specifies Mikhail Kokorich, who imagines that his aircraft-car could be used as a reconnaissance drone or as a “killer machine” for Russian supersonic missiles… These famous missiles have been used in Ukraine since the beginning of the year by Putin’s armies.
Obviously, a question quickly arises: is Kokorich a storyteller or an unrecognized genius? In the space of two years, the new start-up created by this serial entrepreneur has collected nearly 50 million euros from investors, especially Americans, who have followed him despite his flight. And a new fundraiser of more than a hundred million dollars should be formalized at the time of the Paris Air Show in June. Above all, he managed to bring together big names around him. At the head of its German subsidiary, Philipp Rösler, a physicist but above all a former Minister of the Economy and former Vice-Chancellor. In France, Jean-Philippe Girault, an old veteran of aeronautics, former spawn of Safran Electronics & Defense who participated in the construction of the engine of Ariane 4. French general Michel Friedling, former commander of space , appears to him as a strategic adviser. “I try to work to ensure that the industrial footprint of ‘Destinus’ in France is as large as possible”, soberly comments this senior officer who retired from the army last fall to embark on the business.
An opponent of Putin
How did he convince them to join him? “When I met him for the first time in a café near the Gare de Lyon in the spring of 2021, the meeting was supposed to last about thirty minutes, we talked for two and a half hours”, recalls Jean-Philippe Girault . The current between the two men passes well; they speak the same language, that of the engineers. And then Kokorich is not really a newcomer to the sector. “I had it in my sights for years,” confirms Jean-Philippe Girault.
Another man remembers his beginnings – and his first setbacks – the dissident Sergei Gouriev, economist and now director of training at Sciences Po Paris. At the very beginning of the 2010s, Gouriev was an adviser to Dmitry Medvedev. “Mikhail was one of my students before creating Dauria Aerospace, which quickly became the largest private space company in Russia,” says Sergei Gouriev today. Except that the boiling Kokorich is eyeing the West too much. He dreams of democracy, militates for the independence of Siberia… In short, he becomes too cumbersome. His offices are raided by the FSB, he is threatened. “He was forced to flee, like me,” continues Gouriev.
The American trap
For Kokorich, it will be Silicon Valley. He then joined the Y Combinator, the most prestigious start-up nursery in the United States, started from scratch, created three companies, all in the space sector, and settled in Mountain View, not far from the Mecca of Palo Alto and from Google headquarters. Despite his multiple requests and thousands of jobs created, he failed to obtain American citizenship. In 2020, everything goes wrong. He is accused of having lied about the reality of certain tests in space. As it prepares to list one of its nuggets, Momentus, on the Nasdaq, its technology is classified as “sensitive” by Washington. From there, the American Administration has all the rights. His famous green card is taken away from him. It is therefore impossible for a non-resident to continue to run a business in this type of sector or risk being locked up. It is through Mexico that Kokorich will secretly organize his escape and that of his family. “The Americans have quite simply got their hands on a very innovative technology inexpensively. These are cowboy methods”, comments on condition of anonymity a French entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley.
In the meantime, it is at Rochefort airport, in Charente-Maritime, that “Destinus” has planned to carry out the first supersonic tests of these two demonstrators. “Here we have enough free space to create hangars and all the facilities to build and test future aircraft,” explains Thomas Juin, the director of Rochefort and La Rochelle airports. “Destinus” is already working with two partners to develop hydrogen infrastructure: the electrolyser to produce the gas and the liquefier to transform it into liquid fuel to power planes. “France is one of the only European countries to have a real discourse on sovereignty,” continues Mikhail Kokorich, visibly thrilled by Emmanuel Macron’s latest statements. All that is missing is the final “go” from the Ministry of Defense to carry out the subsonic tests in the air corridors reserved for the army above the sea. “We have the agreement in principle” assures Jean-Philippe Girault.
Would Kokorich have finally found his chosen land? He wants to believe it, even if “Destinus”, which had presented a file to benefit from funds from the France 2030 recovery plan, was not selected. It is difficult to forget his American adventures and his Russian nationality even if he belongs to the Russian Antiwar Committee, an organization created at the start of the war in Ukraine by about twenty dissidents, like the chess player Kasparov or Mikhail Khodorkovsky. In the meantime, he is learning French, has just obtained his residence permit and is already preparing the files to obtain his nationality. Another failure? “It’s not one of the options,” he replies a bit tense. Already, in ambush, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are reaching out to him.