Alexander Butyagin, who led the excavation expedition in Crimea, has been detained by employees of the Polish Internal Security Agency. Warsaw is awaiting an official request from Kyiv for the extradition of the Russian scholar.
Employees of the Polish Internal Security Agency have detained Alexander Butyagin, a researcher from the Saint Petersburg Hermitage, who has been leading an excavation expedition in Crimea since 1999. This was reported on Thursday, December 11, by Polish radio RMF FM, citing authorities' information.
It is specified that the scholar was conducting a series of lectures in Europe, and he arrived in Warsaw on his way from the Netherlands to the Balkans. After questioning at the Warsaw prosecutor's office, a Polish court temporarily arrested the Russian citizen for 40 days. Kyiv will seek Butyagin's extradition.
In Ukraine, Butyagin is suspected of illegally conducting excavations at a cultural heritage site and destroying its objects, causing damage of more than 200 million hryvnias (over 4 million euros). According to the investigation, after the annexation of Crimea, Butyagin, as the head of the Hermitage's Myrmecian archaeological expedition, illegally conducted excavations at a cultural heritage site - in the "Ancient City of Myrmecium" in Kerch, without any permits from the Ukrainian authorities.
The Kremlin Accuses Warsaw in Connection with the Arrest of the Russian Scholar
On December 11, Russian authorities accused Poland of "legal tyranny" after Warsaw arrested Russian archaeologist Alexander Butyagin at the request of Ukrainian authorities. "This is absolute legal tyranny," quotes the Interfax agency the reaction of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Russian Foreign Ministry representative Maria Zakharova stated that the decision to detain the Hermitage employee was made "on the basis of an international arrest warrant" issued by Ukraine. "Representatives of the Russian embassy in Warsaw visited Alexander Butyagin and are in contact with his lawyer, who is appealing the court's decision on the temporary arrest," Zakharova informed Russian journalists.
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