“A request for the extradition of a citizen of the Russian Federation has been submitted to the prosecutor’s office,” said Piotr Antoni Skiba, spokesperson for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw. Ukrainian investigators suspect him of the deliberate, illegal, partial destruction of a cultural heritage site in Crimea.
“In recent days, the prosecutor’s office received, via the Ministry of Justice, a request sent by the Ukrainian side for the extradition of Russian citizen Aleksander B.,” said Skiba.
He noted that after the translations are obtained, likely by the end of the year, a motion for approval of the extradition will be submitted to the court.
The case was first reported by the portal rmf24.pl.
On December 4, the Internal Security Agency, acting on the instructions of the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw in connection with the Ukrainian side’s request for international legal assistance, detained Russian citizen Aleksander B.
The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office suspects him of the deliberate, illegal, partial destruction of a cultural heritage site. Aleksander B. was interrogated on December 4 at the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw, where he refused to provide statements. By court decision, he was remanded in custody for 40 days, i.e., until January 13.
According to the Ukrainian prosecutor’s extradition request from November 13, Aleksander B., as head of the Ancient Archaeology Section of the Northern Black Sea Region at the Hermitage Federal Cultural Institution from 2014 to 2019, without the necessary permits for conducting excavations, carried out work at the archaeological complex “Ancient City of Myrmekion” in Kerch, Crimea. According to the Ukrainian side, his work destroyed the archaeological complex. The losses are estimated at over 201 million hryvnias.
After the archaeologist’s detention, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov expressed outrage over his arrest in Poland.