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A court in Warsaw has approved the extradition to Ukraine of Russian archaeologist Alexander Butyagin, according to a report by the independent outlet Vot Tak. Butyagin’s legal defense plans to appeal the decision, with his lawyer, Adam Domański, saying the scholar, who is being held in pretrial detention, remains in contact with Russian diplomats and can communicate with his family only by phone.
Alexander Butyagin, head of the Northern Black Sea archaeology section in the Ancient World Department of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, was detained in Warsaw in December at the request of Ukraine. The scholar had been traveling in Europe to give lectures and public talks. Ukrainian authorities accuse him of conducting illegal archaeological excavations in annexed Crimea, specifically at the site of the ancient Greek city of Myrmekion in Kerch. Ukrainian investigators say Butyagin is responsible for the destruction of Crimean cultural heritage sites, with the damage estimated at more than 200 million hryvnias, or about $4.8 million.
Butyagin began working on excavations at Myrmekion back in the 1980s. As a scientist and archaeologist who worked in Crimea previously told The Insider, before 2014 Butyagin obtained permits for his work from Ukrainian authorities, but that became impossible after Russia’s illegal occupation and annexation of the peninsula.