Russian Archaeologist Wanted for Crimea Excavations
Scholar’s extradition from Poland would mark the first case of its kind.
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Russian Archaeologist Wanted for Crimea Excavations
Scholar’s extradition from Poland would mark the first case of its kind.
A Warsaw court has approved the extradition of a Russian archaeologist to Ukraine for allegedly destroying heritage sites in Crimea in what could prove an important legal precedent.
Aleksandr Butyagin, a scholar at Russia’s Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, was detained by Polish law enforcement in Warsaw on December 4 late 2025 while on a European lecture tour. He was subsequently arrested pending his extradition case. In Ukraine, the archaeologist is suspected of conducting illegal excavations in Russian-annexed Crimea and he was placed on a wanted list on December 18, 2024.
He denies the charges and his lawyers are appealing the decision.
Since 1999, Butyagin – head of the Northern Black Sea Archaeology Sector in the Department of the Ancient World at the Hermitage - has led an expedition at the site of the ancient settlement of Myrmekion, located in the modern city of Kerch in Crimea.
Before Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Butyagin received approval from the Ukrainian authorities for conducting excavations. However, after 2014, the archaeologist no longer applied for permission although the expedition’s work continued. According to Ukrainian and international law, this means that Butyagin conducted the excavations illegally.
“Since Russia’s occupation of the peninsula, the archaeologist has been illegally excavating the ancient city of Myrmekion in Kerch,” the prosecutor general’s office of Ukraine reported, specifying that he acted “without any authorisation from competent Ukrainian authorities. These actions are destroying a legally protected site of national significance and were the basis for launching a criminal investigation”.
In October 2024, the prosecutor’s office of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol notified Butyagin that he was a suspect in a criminal offence under Part 4, Article 298 of the criminal code of Ukraine, which penalises the illegal excavation of archaeological sites and the destruction or damage of cultural heritage objects.
In the notice of suspicion, the prosecutor also cited Butyagin’s violation of the Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, to which Ukraine is a party. Under Article 9 of this document, an occupying power is prohibited from conducting any archaeological excavations or “any alteration or change in the use of a cultural property which is intended to conceal or destroy cultural, historical or scientific evidence”.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), in a joint operation with the National Police and the prosecutor’s office, gathered sufficient evidencefor prosecution.
“The suspect’s group conducted illegal excavations across an area of hundreds of square meters, removing the peninsula’s vital ‘cultural layer’ to a depth of nearly two metres,” the SBU stated. “An expert assessment determined that the digs damaged a Ukrainian historical site, causing losses of over 200 million hryvnias (4.5 million US dollars).”
Butyagin does not deny conducting archaeological excavations in Crimea since the occupation began, but does not acknowledge any wrongdoing.
The scholar said in a statement that he was “simply doing the work to which he has dedicated his life”.
The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the accusations were “absurd” and demanded his “immediate release”.
However, scholarship does not override international law, according to Elmira Ablyalimova-Chyihoz, an expert in cultural studies at the Crimean Institute for Strategic Studies (CISS).
She stressed that scientific activity in contested territories was governed by international humanitarian law, disputing the notion that archaeologists operate outside political and legal constraints.
“The argument that archaeologists are ‘people of culture,’ engaged in scholarly work, confuses profession with responsibility,” Ablyalimova-Chyihoz continued. “Archaeology does not exist outside legal frameworks. To say ‘we are only doing science’ ignores the political and legal context in which that science operates.
“Excavations conducted under permits issued by an occupying administration are not neutral acts. They may contribute to the appropriation of cultural heritage, the alteration of site integrity or the legitimisation of unlawful governance,” she said.
Ablyalimova-Chyihoz also rejected arguments based on the historical continuity of archaeological work in Crimea, noting that although Russian institutions had conducted excavations on the peninsula since tsarist times, “the legal regime governing cultural property in such circumstances is not imperial custom, but international convention”.
Butyagin has been in custody in Warsaw for more than three months, awaiting a decision from Polish authorities on whether to extradite him to Ukraine. On March 18, a court ruled that the Russian archaeologist’s extradition to Ukraine was legally permissible.
Butyagin’s Polish lawyer, Adam Domański, has stated he would appeal the ruling and the defence team also claimed there was a threat to the archaeologist’s life and health if he was sent to Ukraine, questioning the fairness of a future trial. Even if an appellate court upholds the extradition, under Polish law the final decision on Butyagin’s transfer will be made by the country’s Minister of Justice.
According to Andrii Yakovliev, an expert in international humanitarian law, these arguments lack credibility and rest on a questionable factual foundation.
“Extradition is a procedure where a person who is a suspect – and only a suspect, not yet formally accused – is sought and detained so that an investigation can be conducted and they can stand trial,” he told IWPR. “Other stages of the process follow. It is only during the trial that it will be determined whether the person is guilty or if they committed a crime.”
Yakovliev added that he was unaware of any cases where suspects transferred to Ukraine had suffered from improper detention or been subjected to torture.
“Russians convicted of war crimes are serving their sentences in penitentiary facilities after undergoing standard judicial procedures,” he continued. “I have no information from any international organisations suggesting that Ukraine lacks a fair trial system, that people are convicted without basis or that they are denied access to a lawyer. The procedural framework for a legal defence has been established in Ukraine.”
In total, 36 archaeologists are either on Ukrainian sanction lists or are subjects of criminal investigations.
In the summer of 2025, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Vladimir Tolstikov, head of the Department of Art and Archaeology of the Ancient World at Moscow’s Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. Investigators allege that he also conducted illegal excavations in occupied Crimea, an offence under Article 298, Part 4 of the criminal code of Ukraine.
“The occupying administration is facilitating illegal archaeological excavations on the peninsula, leading to the destruction of Ukraine’s cultural heritage sites. The occupiers are also conducting illegal restorations of these sites to distort the history of Crimea and emphasise its ‘Russian’ component,” the prosecutor general’s office of Ukraine stated.
According to the Ukrainian Regional Centre for Human Rights, Russian authorities have issued more than 1,730 permits for archaeological work since the occupation of Crimea began in 2014. The centre calculated that in the summer of 2025 alone, at least 25 expeditions were active in Crimea.
“All movable heritage is then appropriated and incorporated into Russia’s cultural space,” Yaroslava Sementsova, an analyst at the Regional Centre for Human Rights, told IWPR. “It’s important to understand that this appropriation begins with archaeologists and museum staff who sign official documents. After this appropriation, the items are relocated, both to Russian territory and to other occupied areas. This is Russia’s state policy and it applies to everything, including culture.”
She noted that if Butyagin was extradited to Ukraine, it would set a major precedent as the first time a Russian archaeologist could stand trial in person for illegal excavations in Crimea. If found guilty, the scholar faces two to five years in prison.
Sementsova argued that this was too lenient and called for the context of Russia’s invasion to be considered, with the charges expanded to include Article 438 of the criminal code of Ukraine on war crimes.
“In my opinion, we need to build a more comprehensive case that covers not only the destruction of archaeological sites but also their subsequent exploitation and use,” she said. “We should prove that this is a deliberate, broad strategy – a policy of Russia. These aren’t ‘rescue excavations’, as they claim; it’s a form of appropriation.
