Russian archeologist Alexander Butyagin was part of a five-for-five swap involving Russia, Poland, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Romania, and Moldova organized by the US. As a reminder, he was detained late last year at Ukraine’s request while transiting through Poland on his way back from a Dutch conference and was awaiting extradition on politicized charges of plundering artifacts from Crimea. The other released prisoners weren’t named except for ethnic Polish Belarusian journalist Andrzej Poczobut.
He was arrested in 2021, less than a year after the failed Polish-backed Color Revolution the summer prior, and convicted of extremist charges in 2023. Late last year, leading Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita cited unnamed sources to report that his release was one of three conditions for a reset in bilateral ties. It’s now self-evident in retrospect that Butyagin was detained as a means for ensuring precisely this through the swap that was reportedly being negotiated in secret among all parties for two years already.
Poland’s conservative opposition was enraged that he wasn’t part of summer 2024’s historic prisoner swap despite Poland giving up alleged Russian spy Pavel Rubtsov and blamed the ruling liberals for failing to advance what’s considered by many Poles in this case to be the national interest. Their leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski referenced this in a tweet celebrating Poczobut’s release. His ally President Karol Nawrocki also threw a jab at their rival, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, for his recent criticism of the US.
He told the media, “Scaring Poles with war, attacking the ally that is the USA, and undermining NATO articles is harmful and wrong. It was a disgraceful interview. Especially at a time when the USA and Trump were helping to free Poles in Belarus.” This was in reference to Tusk openly doubting the US’ loyalty to NATO as part of what some conservatives are convinced is a deliberate ploy to damage bilateral ties in order to turbocharge Poland’s pivot from the US camp to the Franco-German one.
Polish politics aside (which are important to monitor ahead of fall 2027’s next Sejm elections), Butyagin’s release will upset Ukraine and possibly lead to another chill in ties with Poland, while Poczobut’s shows that President Alexander Lukashenko continues his pro-US drift. His recently signaled (and possibly Russian-inspired) misgivings about that appear to have passed, perhaps due to Zelensky threatening him at Trump’s behest as speculated here, which can lead to a breakthrough in ties with Poland.
Publicly financed Belarusian media BelTA interpreted Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski’s words that “We are always ready to respond with goodwill to gestures of goodwill” as hope for a new chapter in their ties. Lukashenko himself shared a radically changed perception of Poland in January compared to that which he held exactly 12 months earlier so the feeling seems to be mutual. As was explained here in late March after he started acting suspiciously, the US and Poland likely want him to defect from Russia.
He insists that the US has no such plans, and Russia did indeed play a role in Belarus satisfying one of Poland’s three reported conditions for a reset by supporting the Poczobut-Butyagin swap, but Poczobut’s release could still lead to a Polish-Belarusian détente with implications for Russia. So long as it doesn’t entail changes to Belarus’ political and especially military ties with Russia, then it’s not a problem for the Kremlin and might even present a chance to de-escalate tensions with NATO, but it’s too early to tell.
