{"id":537489,"date":"2026-04-28T18:15:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=537489"},"modified":"2026-04-29T07:57:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T04:57:18","slug":"ukraine-regrets-learning-of-butyagin-s-extradition-to-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/ukraine-regrets-learning-of-butyagin-s-extradition-to-russia","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine \u201cRegrets\u201d Learning Of Butyagin\u2019s Extradition To Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Ukraine\u2019s Foreign Ministry has reacted to the <a href=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/poland-hands-over-archaeologist-butyagin-to-russia-in-exchange\">extradition of Russian archaeologist <strong><b>Aleksandr Butyagin<\/b><\/strong><\/a> from Poland to Russia. The statement indicates that Ukraine was not aware of Poland\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cUkraine has learned with regret that, contrary to the previous entirely justified decision of a Polish court, a Russian citizen who is reasonably suspected of committing a crime on the territory of Ukraine \u2014 in particular, the removal of cultural valuables from Crimea \u2014 was nevertheless not extradited to Ukraine,\u201d<\/em> the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/mfa.gov.ua\/news\/komentar-rechnika-mzs-georgiya-tihogo-shchodo-neekstradiciyi-polshcheyu-do-ukrayini-rosiyanina-pidozryuvanogo-u-vivezenni-kulturnih-cinnostej-z-okupovanogo-krimu\">statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Ukrainian side believes that Russia is using this episode to \u201cjustify the occupation of Crimea and the exploitation of temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory by Russian citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cUkraine consistently insists on bringing to real legal accountability all Russian entities working for the occupation and the war. In relation to this Butyagin case and other similar situations, Ukraine will continue to apply the relevant legal mechanisms and will also work in the jurisdictions of partner countries,\u201d<\/em> the statement said.<\/p>\n<p>Russian archaeologist Butyagin was detained in Poland at Ukraine\u2019s request in December 2025. He had been conducting excavations in Crimea. After Russia\u2019s occupation of the peninsula in 2014, he continued the excavations without the permission of the Ukrainian authorities. Ukraine accuses him of illegal excavations and the theft of historical artifacts. Ukraine had sought his extradition from Poland. On March 18, the Warsaw District Court ruled that Butyagin\u2019s extradition to Ukraine was lawful. On April 28, Poland handed him over to Russia as part of a \u201c5-for-5\u201d exchange, during which journalist <strong><b>Andrzej Poczobut<\/b><\/strong> was also released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ukraine\u2019s Foreign Ministry has reacted to the extradition of Russian archaeologist Aleksandr Butyagin from Poland to Russia. The statement indicates that Ukraine was not aware of Poland\u2019s decision. \u201cUkraine has learned with regret that, contrary to the previous entirely justified decision of a Polish court, a Russian citizen who is reasonably suspected of committing a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":537488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/69f18fb1955e6.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Ukraine \u201cRegrets\u201d Learning Of Butyagin\u2019s Extradition To Russia"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142338,143284,143090],"tags":[143248,143123],"class_list":["post-537489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","category-politics","tag-polsha","tag-ukraina"],"wps_subtitle":"","permalink_manager":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}