ST. PETERSBURG, January 12. /TASS/. The State Hermitage Museum will continue to assist its employee, archaeologist Alexander Butyagin, through diplomatic channels, it said in a statement.

"In connection with the upcoming legal actions concerning the employee of the Hermitage, the museum informs. The Hermitage continues to work to assist Alexander Butyagin through diplomatic channels and is in constant contact with the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation, the Russian embassy in Poland and colleagues from the museum community," the statement said.

The Butyagin case

In 2024, Ukraine charged a Russian archaeologist conducting excavations in Crimea in absentia. The name was not indicated in official reports, but according to several Ukrainian media reports, it was about Alexander Butyagin, head of the Department of Ancient archeology of the Northern Black Sea Region of the State Hermitage Museum, head of the archaeological expedition to the Myrmekiy settlement in Crimea.

Butyagin was detained by Polish special services on his way from the Netherlands to the Balkans on December 4. According to Polish media, he refused to testify at the prosecutor's office. The Warsaw court arrested the archaeologist for 40 days. On December 23, the Polish prosecutor's office received an extradition request from Ukraine. According to the Polish prosecutor's office, Butyagin could face up to 10 years in prison in Ukraine.