Four Dutch masterpieces stolen from museum show up in Ukraine



Four Dutch masterpieces dating from the country’s 17th-century Golden Age have been recovered by security services in Ukraine over 10 years after they were stolen from a museum in the Netherlands, according to Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin.

The paintings — part of a group of 24 works valued at 10 million euros when they went missing in 2005 — were said in December to have been discovered in a villa in a rebel-controlled area of eastern Ukraine, although the reports were never confirmed.

“And I am sure that today’s success will help improve Ukraine’s image in the future everywhere, particularly in the Netherlands,” Klimkin said at a briefing with Dutch Ambassador to Ukraine Kees Klompenhouwer.

Dutch voters rejected a Ukraine-EU treaty on closer economic and political ties in a non-binding referendum on April 6.

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2016-04-17

The Dutch being bribed to ignore the referendum ?

There is also the issue of the return of items from an art exhibition to Ukraine from the Netherlands.

In 2014? there was in the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam an exhibition of Gold artifacts featuring collections from Crimea. The Dutch don't want to return because since them Crimea has been taken over by Russia, not recognised by the Dutch, and both the Russians and the Ukranians are pressurising to return the artifacts to them.

I would presume these paintings will be part of new negotiations about that.

Edited April 17, 201610 yr by stevenl

The Dutch being bribed to ignore the referendum ?

Bribed with there own paintings no less. Ukraine should send the paintings back

immediately if not sooner.