It also provided a grim example of why, despite its scientific prowess, Russia has had such trouble diversifying its economy beyond just pulling oil, gas and other resources out of the ground. Mr. Putin has for years called on scientists to look beyond their books and laboratories, and use their world-class talents to help build a modern economy.

But those who try to do so run a serious risk of getting raided by masked men with guns. Cases tend to drag on for months or years, leaving the careers and nerves of suspects shredded, even if they are eventually exonerated.

That happened to Dmitri Trubitsyn, a former physicist who was arrested in 2017 in connection with a successful high-tech company he had set up in Siberia with fellow scientists. The case was finally closed more than a year later because of a lack of evidence to support accusations that he was running a criminal conspiracy to deceive regulators.

Meeting with security force commanders on Wednesday in the Kremlin, Mr. Putin praised the Federal Security Service — known as the F.S.B., the successor to the domestic arm of the Soviet-era K.G.B. — for its growing role in “Russia’s integrated security,” while conceding that law enforcement agencies needed to work on “strengthening public confidence in them.”

When they descended on the Lebedev Physics Institute last week, the security services carried out simultaneous raids on scientists and their family members. The main target of their investigation seems to have been Olga Kanorskaya, the daughter of a Lebedev scientist and the owner of a private company that, from an office she rented at the institute, built up a small business selling precision glassware.