5 January 2015, 19:10 GMT
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russia failed to reach an out-of-court settlement on the return of gold Scythian artifacts to Crimea from The Netherlands, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Thursday.
“Despite efforts of Crimean museums, we were unable to return the collection out of court,” he told reporters.
In February 2014, a collection of gold Scythian artifacts was sent for an exhibition to the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam and kept there following Crimea's reunification with Russia.
The artifacts were drawn from five museums, four of which are located in Crimea and one in Ukraine. In March, after Crimea reunified with Russia, Ukrainian authorities demanded that the entire collection of more than 1,000 items be returned to Kiev.
In November, the four Crimean museums filed a lawsuit with a court in the Dutch capital demanding the return of the gold. The first court hearing regarding the collection's return was held January 21.
