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Amsterdam Court of Appeal rules to return Scythian gold collection of Crimean museums to Ukraine
POLITICS
26.10.2021 | 20:45
An Amsterdam appeals court has ruled that a trove of historical treasures from Crimea that have been stored for years at a Dutch museum must be given to Ukraine
Ukraine’s president hailed the decision as a victory for his country.
The judgment, which can be appealed to the Dutch Supreme Court, upheld a lower court’s ruling and was the latest development in a protracted legal tug-of-war about the fate of the artifacts that stems from Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, a month after the Allard Pierson Museum opened the “Crimea — Gold and secrets of the Black Sea” exhibition, sparking a dispute over where the borrowed treasures should be returned to. The exhibits have been stored in Amsterdam pending resolution of the dispute.
Russian officials and lawmakers vowed to appeal.
Nearly five years ago, an Amsterdam court ruled that the objects must be returned to Ukraine and not to four museums in Crimea that loaned them out for a 2014 exhibition. At the time, the court didn’t rule on the actual ownership of the approximately 300 artifacts, saying that the issue must be resolved by a Ukrainian court.
