Tensions are boiling over yet again between Moscow and Warsaw, this time in relation to a Russian archaeologist detained by Polish authorities.
Alexander Butyagin, an archaeologist at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, was arrested by Polish authorities last week at the request of Kyiv, after being accused by the Ukrainian side of conducting illegal excavations and stealing artefacts on the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
“We will demand the protection of our citizen’s interests through diplomatic channels. Our diplomats will, of course, work on this. (…) The most important thing now is to achieve the release of this Russian citizen,” Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the Russian president, told press, writes Mandiner.
Andrei Ordas, Russia’s charge d’affaires in Warsaw, also told Rossiya 24 television that Butyagin “is aware that the charges against him are absurd.”
He stressed that the Russian embassy would seek the scientist’s unconditional release and his departure from Poland.
Ordas added that Russian diplomats are in constant contact with the Warsaw district prosecutor’s office and Butyagin’s lawyer, and warned Russian citizens to only travel to Poland if absolutely necessary.
The RIA Novosti news agency, citing Polish commercial radio station RMF FM, reported that the scientist was traveling from the Netherlands to the Balkans when he was arrested in Poland. Butyagin has reportedly not confessed to any crime.
According to the BBC, the Polish prosecutor says Butyagin “illegally partially destroyed the ‘Ancient City of Myrmekion’ archaeological complex,” claiming damage close to $5 million.
The Polish side is awaiting a formal extradition request from Kyiv, and a Warsaw court has ordered that he remain in detention for 40 days in the meantime.
In November 2024, Ukrainian authorities in absentia charged a Russian archaeologist conducting excavations in Crimea, who was not officially named, but according to several Ukrainian media sources, it was Hermitage expert Alexander Butyagin, who led an archaeological expedition in Kerch. RIA Novosti, citing the Warsaw prosecutor’s office, wrote that the scientist could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of the charges against him.
Back in 2021, in a piece published on Voice Crimea, one group of experts went so far as to say Russia is guilty of war crimes under the guise of “archaeological research.” The article cites activities by Hermitage, under Butyagin, between 2014 and 2019, specifically “unlawful appropriation, unlawful archeological excavations, during which archeological artifacts were seized are a violation of international humanitarian law.
“These actions of the Russian Federation, together with other actions of the Occupying Power in their entirety may constitute a war crime in the form of extensive destruction and appropriation of cultural property, not justified by military necessity, and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.”
