{"id":3309,"date":"2025-12-11T12:48:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T13:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/youtubexyoutube.com\/?p=3309"},"modified":"2025-12-12T13:48:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T13:48:48","slug":"russia-condemns-polish-detention-of-hermitage-archaeologist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/11\/russia-condemns-polish-detention-of-hermitage-archaeologist\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia condemns Polish detention of Hermitage archaeologist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aleksandr Butyagin is being wrongly held on a Ukrainian warrant over \u201cabsurd\u201d claims he was \u201cdestroying cultural heritage,\u201d Moscow has said<\/strong><\/p>\n

Russia has condemned the detention by Poland of a prominent Russian archaeologist at Ukraine\u2019s request, whom Kiev has accused of \u201cdestroying cultural heritage\u201d<\/em> during excavations in Crimea.<\/p>\n

Kiev still disputes Moscow\u2019s sovereignty over the peninsula, which boasts a rich and precious archaeological heritage dating back thousands of years, and insists that research and excavations there must be authorized by Ukrainian officials.<\/p>\n

Aleksandr Butyagin, a senior researcher at the St. Petersburg State Hermitage Museum and a veteran classical antiquity specialist, was detained in Warsaw last week as he was traveling through Europe to deliver a series of lectures, Polish outlet RFM reported.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s Prosecutor General\u2019s Office said the scientist is suspected of \u201cillegally conducting excavations\u201d<\/em> at a heritage site in Kerch without permits from Ukrainian authorities, claiming that such work \u201cactually destroy[s] a legally protected object of national importance.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"FILE
Russia goes to EU court over Crimean treasure transfer<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It also accused Russia of conducting \u201cillegal restoration work\u201d<\/em> in Crimea \u2013 which was often neglected by Ukrainian authorities before it overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in 2014 \u2013 in an alleged effort to \u201cdistort the history\u201d<\/em> of the peninsula.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the detention, stressing Ukrainian charges have no legal grounds as Crimea is \u201can inseparable part of the Russian Federation.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0
<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope Poland understands the absurdity of the accusations against a respected Russian scholar-archaeologist\u2026 and realizes that such politically motivated actions will prove fruitless and will not remain without consequences,\u201d<\/em> the ministry said.<\/p>\n

Butyagin has more than 120 published works and has led excavations in Kerch since 1999, as well as a long-running joint project in Italy. The Polish court ordered him to be held for 40 days while Ukraine\u2019s extradition documents are reviewed. Should Butyagin be extradited and convicted, he could face a sentence of up to ten years in a Ukrainian prison.<\/p>\n

The dispute comes amid other cultural property rows between Moscow and Kiev, including a protracted legal battle over the so-called Scythian gold collection discovered in Crimea and loaned abroad before 2014. Despite Russia\u2019s objections that the artifacts belong to Crimean museums, Kiev won a lawsuit in the Netherlands, whose top court does not recognize Crimea as Russian territory and ordered the collection to be transferred to Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aleksandr Butyagin is being wrongly held on a Ukrainian warrant over \u201cabsurd\u201d claims he was \u201cdestroying cultural heritage,\u201d Moscow has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3309"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3313,"href":"http:\/\/youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309\/revisions\/3313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}