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Polish authorities released arrested archaeologist Alexander Butyagin as part of an exchange and handed him over to Russia. This was reported by Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, according to TASS. The information was confirmed by the FSB.
The case against Butyagin. Butyagin was detained in Poland in early December at Ukraine’s request and was later arrested. The Ukrainian side says he conducted work in Crimea without permission from the peninsula’s lawful authorities, and that during the excavations there was a “partial destruction of a cultural heritage site.” The damage from the work is estimated at 200 million hryvnias (about 370 million rubles).
In March, a court in Warsaw approved Ukraine’s request for his extradition.
Who Butyagin is. Alexander Butyagin is a Russian archaeologist and classical scholar, a popularizer of science, and head of the Northern Black Sea archaeology sector in the Antiquity Department of the State Hermitage Museum. Together with his group, he carried out excavations in annexed Crimea at the site “Ancient City of Myrmekion.”
What else is known about the exchange. As the Belarusian state agency BelTA reported, Minsk, Moscow and Warsaw conducted a detainee exchange today on the Belarus-Poland border under a “five for five” formula. In addition to Butyagin, Belarusian journalist Andrzej Poczobut was released in the exchange. He was met at the border by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The FSB уточнили, that Poland also handed over to Russia the wife of a serviceman. In return, Russia transferred two Moldovan intelligence officers, the agency claims. It is still unknown who else was released.
Andrzej Poczobut is a correspondent for the Polish publication Gazeta Wyborcza and an activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus. In 2023, he was sentenced to eight years in a penal colony on charges of calling for actions against state security and inciting hostility.
According to the indictment, Poczobut described the USSR’s attack on Poland in 1939 as aggression in media statements. He was also accused over statements in defense of the Polish minority in Belarus, articles about the 2020 Belarusian protests, and a 2006 text about Anatol Radziwonik, one of the commanders of the Polish anti-communist underground in the Grodno region.
In 2025, Poczobut received the Sakharov Prize together with Georgian journalist Mzia Amaglobeli. Amnesty International recognized him as a prisoner of conscience.