Russian archaeologist can be sent to Ukraine for trial, Polish judge rules

A judge in Poland has ruled that Russian archaeologist Alexander Butyagin can be extradited to Ukraine, although his defence says he will appeal.

Butyagin is being held in a Warsaw prison for allegedly conducting illegal excavations and plundering artefacts from the ancient city of Myrmekion in Crimea - Ukraine's peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.

If Judge Dariusz Łubowski's ruling is upheld, a final decision on extradition will rest with Poland's justice minister.

Butyagin - arrested in Poland at Ukraine's request in December - denies all the allegations. If convicted, he faces up to five years in jail. Russia has demanded his immediate release, saying the case is politically motivated.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, European courts in several instances have refused to extradite Russians to Ukraine, citing the possible risk of violations to the European Convention on Human Rights.

The archaeologist's life and wellbeing would be at risk if he were extradited to Ukraine, Butyagin's lawyer Adam Domański has said.

A senior scholar at the Hermitage, Russia's largest art museum in St Petersburg, he has since 1999 overseen the museum's excavations of Myrmekion, an ancient Greek settlement founded in Crimea in the 6th Century BC.

Initially, his research was authorised by Ukraine. But when Russia annexed the peninsula in March 2014, the work continued without Kyiv's consent and carried on after the full-scale invasion eight years later.

He could face a jail term of up to five years if found guilty of plundering artefacts, including 30 gold coins, resulting in damage estimated at more than $4.5m (£3.4m).

Before his arrest in Warsaw on 4 December, Butyagin had travelled in Europe giving public talks to Russian-speaking audiences.

He knew that a Kyiv court had issued a warrant for his arrest in April 2025 - but did not expect to be arrested in the European Union.

Russia's excavations in Crimea are illegal under the 2nd protocol to The Hague Convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict.

Ukraine and most European countries are parties to the protocol, but Russia is not.

Ahead of the extradition Alexander Butyagin told the BBC via his lawyer that he had kept on digging to preserve an archaeological site.

He did not dispute working without Kyiv's authorisation - but rejected charges of "intentional unlawful destruction, ruin, or damage" of monuments.

"Stopping our work would have affected the condition of the monument, leaving it unattended and deteriorating due to natural causes and exposed to vandals and looters," he argued.

But Evelina Kravchenko, a senior researcher at Ukraine's Institute of Archaeology, said Russian archaeologists should be prevented from digging in occupied Ukraine.

"I have no personal animosity for Butyagin. He is a Russian citizen who has worked in Crimea, and I believe his work has been harmful for Crimea's cultural heritage," Kravchenko told the BBC.

In November 2024, Ukraine's state security service SBU said that - together with Ukrainian police and the prosecutor's office - it had "gathered evidence against a Russian citizen who is looting Ukrainian cultural heritage in temporary occupied Crimea".

It said the Russian national was the head of the archaeology department at the Hermitage - but did not name him publicly.

The SBU added that the archaeologist was suspected of "illegally conducting excavations at an archaeological heritage site, destruction, ruin or damage to cultural heritage sites".

Butyagin is currently in a detention centre in Warsaw, and a motion to release him on bail has been turned down.

Asked if he would return to digging in occupied Crime if his appeal succeeded, the archaeologist avoided answering - saying only that he wanted to change a lot about his life and first wished to return to his family.