Russia does not rule out that the Scythian gold transferred to Ukraine may be lost. This was stated on February 11 by the director of the first European department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Artem Studennikov.
“We have every reason to believe that Crimean artifacts may suffer a sad fate; we cannot exclude that they may be lost,” he said in an interview with “RIA News”.
Studennikov noted that this is evidenced by the removal of icons from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra and the movement of objects from Ukrainian museums to European ones, supposedly for storage, he writes. “Gazeta.Ru”.
The exhibits, known as “Scythian gold”, were sent to the exhibition “Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea” at the Allard Pearson Museum in Amsterdam in February 2014, even before the republic joined Russia. More than 2 thousand items were brought there. After the annexation of Crimea from the Russian Federation, Ukraine turned to the Netherlands with a demand to give the exhibits back to it.
In October 2021, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal ruled on the transfer of Scythian gold to Ukrainian ownership “until the situation stabilizes” on the peninsula. In January 2022, the museums of the republic sent a cassation appeal against this decision to the Supreme Court of the Netherlands. Later, in June 2023, a Dutch court rejected this complaint.
On November 27 last year, Ukrainian customs reported that a truck carrying 2,694 kg of cultural property, collectively known as “Scythian gold,” entered the territory of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Commenting on this news, the head of Crimea Sergei Aksenov said that the Russian Federation should not regret this, since it was clear that the items would not be returned to Russia.
The press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, said that day that Scythian gold should definitely be in Crimea, since it belongs to the peninsula. Official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova noted on November 29 that the attempt to cover up the actual theft of Scythian gold calls into question the impartiality of the Dutch judicial system. She also called the transfer of values to Ukraine “absolutely unconscionable from the point of view of universal morality.”
Crimea became part of Russia in 2014 after a referendum in which the majority of residents of the peninsula voted for reunification with the Russian Federation. Kyiv refuses to recognize the results of the vote and considers Crimea its territory. The Russian leadership has repeatedly stated that the residents of Crimea democratically, in full compliance with international law, voted for reunification and the question of the ownership of the peninsula is finally closed.
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