MOSCOW, November 27. /TASS/. The Scythian gold artifacts, which have recently been given to Ukraine, could end up in the private collections of Kiev officials, Crimea’s head Sergey Aksyonov said on Rossiya-24 television.

He made the comments after the State Customs Service of Ukraine reported that the Scythian gold had been brought to Ukraine and was going through customs clearance.

"Kiev has placed [such valuables] in the private collections of ordinary officials, so nothing good awaits this collection. And in terms of approaches, I have said this for a long time: It's time to stop the demagoguery of saying that they refuse to give us things. It is clear that they will respond only to force, to decisive actions and actions that are taken pre-emptively. So it was clear from the get-go that they would not give us the gold, and that the issue can be solved only through achieving the goals set by the president for our special military operation," Aksyonov said.

The Scythian Gold collection of over 2,000 items was on display at the Allard Pierson Museum of the University of Amsterdam between February and August 2014. The collection’s future came into doubt when Crimea reunited with Russia in March 2014. Crimea’s museums and Ukraine both laid claim to the collection. The University of Amsterdam, which oversees the Allard Pierson Museum, put the return of the items on hold until either the dispute was legally resolved or the parties came to terms.

In June 2023, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands upheld the Amsterdam Court of Appeal’s decision that the Scythian Gold collection be handed over to Ukraine. In an interview with TASS, Crimea Senator Sergey Tsekov slammed the ruling as unlawful, saying that by all legal accounts, the collection belongs to the Crimean museums.