Museums in Crimea have appealed a Dutch court ruling that said artifacts from their collections should be returned to Ukraine rather than to the Russian-controlled peninsula, a Russian lawmaker said on January 25.
"We have filed an appeal. We hope that a right political decision will be taken," said Natalya Poklonskaya, a Russian parliament deputy and former prosecutor in the Russian-imposed government in Crimea.
"What happened in the court is against all museum ethics. ... These valuables can only be kept in the region where they were found," she said. "They are Crimea's heritage that should be returned home."
The items, known as the Scythian gold, are in the Netherlands because they were borrowed from four museums in Crimea and one in Kyiv for an exhibition in early 2014 at Amsterdam's Allard Pierson Museum.
They were sent before Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 in a move condemned as illegal in the West.
Late last year, an Amsterdam court ruled that the collection was part of Ukraine's cultural heritage and should be returned to Kyiv.
