Return of "Scythian Gold" to Ukraine a Step Closer

Scythian gold

The Dutch Supreme Court has just ruled that 565 ancient gold artefacts that were loaned by Crimean museums for show abroad should be returned to Ukraine, and not to Russian-occupied Crimea (Toby Sterling, "Gold treasures should go to Ukraine not Crimea, top Dutch court rules" Reuters June 9, 2023). Though moral arguments and political rhetoric deny the validity of the Russian annexation of the region a decade ago, this antiquities case is one of the few international legal judgements that actually confirms that the Russian claims to property in the region have no legal basis. Lower courts in the Netherlands found in 2016 and 2021 that the pieces should be returned to Ukraine.

More than a thousand ancient objects, including a solid gold Scythian helmet and a golden neck ornament from Crimea were on loan to Amsterdam's Allard Pierson museum when Moscow seized the peninsula from Ukraine. When the exhibition ended, both Ukraine and the museums in the now Russian-controlled territory said they had rights to the artefacts and claimed them. Unsure what to do, the Dutch museum kept the works in storage pending a final legal decision. "This decision ends this dispute. The Allard Pierson museum must return these artistic treasures to the State of Ukraine and not to the museums in Crimea," Friday's ruling said, upholding the decision of a lower court in 2021. [...] The U.N., the European Union and the Netherlands all recognise the "territorial integrity" of Ukraine in its pre-2014 borders.

The Allard Pierson museum said on Friday it "can now act in accordance with the ruling of the Supreme Court" and deliver the works to Ukraine, and the artefacts will be held at the National Historical Museum in Kyiv "until the situation in Crimea has stabilized".

President Volodymyr Zelensky's reaction here.