The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the transfer of Scythian gold to Ukraine

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MOSCOW, November 29 The transfer of Scythian gold to Kiev is illegitimate from the point of view of the practice of museum exchanges and unconscionable from a moral point of view, there is a threat of looting the collection, stated at a briefing the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova.
“The transfer by the Netherlands of exhibits of the exhibition “Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea” belonging to four Crimean museums to the Kiev authorities is illegitimate, as we have repeatedly said, from the point of view of the practice of museum exchanges and absolutely unconscionable from the point of view of human morality,” noted Zakharova.

The diplomat added that with its actions, “The Hague dealt a tangible blow to the cultural and historical heritage of the Crimean peninsula.” In addition, according to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the attempt to cover up the actual theft of cultural property by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands once again calls into question the independence and impartiality of the Dutch judicial system.

“There is every reason to believe that we are talking about theft, and the Kiev authorities themselves are behind this theft. We see how information about art objects exported and recently preserved on the territory of Ukraine appears on the Internet, at auctions, on social networks. Therefore there is a suspicion that Crimean artifacts may be lost. In this case, responsibility will also lie with the Netherlands. Perhaps someone there is also interested in this,» Zakharova said.
Four Crimean museums — Kerch Historical Museum cultural reserve (which later became part of the East Crimean), the Central Museum of Taurida, the Bakhchisarai Historical and Cultural Reserve and the Tauride Chersonese — sent the exhibition «Crimea — a golden island in the Black Sea» in 2013 to Bonn, and then to Amsterdam. After the reunification of Crimea with Russia in 2014, the Netherlands faced the question of who should return the collection to. The Amsterdam Court of Appeal decided on October 26, 2021 that the collection of Scythian gold should be transferred to Ukraine. In January 2022, the museums of Crimea sent a cassation appeal to the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, but it upheld the decision of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal to transfer the collection of Scythian gold to Ukraine.