Ancient Crimean treasures return to Kyiv after years of legal battles
- Scythian artefacts were on loan to an Amsterdam museum and ended up at the centre of a geopolitical crisis after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea
- Ukraine hailed the arrival of the jewels in the midst of the Russian invasion as a victory for its ‘identity and freedom’
Ancient Crimean gold treasures returned to Kyiv on Monday after being stuck in a Dutch museum for nine years, where they were on show when Russia seized the Black Sea peninsula in 2014.
Ukraine hailed the arrival of the jewels in the midst of the Russian full-scale invasion as a victory for its “identity and freedom”.
The Scythian artefacts – some around 2,000 years old – were on loan to Amsterdam’s Allard Pierson museum when they suddenly were at the centre of a geopolitical crisis following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Years of legal battles ensued, with both Kyiv and Moscow-controlled Crimean museums filing suits that the jewels should be in their hands, before the Dutch Supreme Court ruled this summer they should go to Ukraine.
“After almost 10 years of trials, artefacts from four museums of Crimea … returned to Ukraine,” the National Museum of the History of Ukraine (NMHU) said on its website.
“They will be kept in the NMHU until the de-occupation of Crimea,” it added.
Their return comes 21 months into Moscow’s offensive, and is a symbolic win for Ukraine, which has repeatedly vowed to retake Crimea.