Russia slams EP resolution on return of Romanian gold as illegitimate — official

Dmitri Medvedev, the vice-president of Russia’s Security Council, reacted virulently on Friday to the EU’s decision to ask Russia to return Romania’s Treasury, stating that “Romanians are not a nation” and that the request is “insolence”, reports TASS.   “Romanians, as  it is known, are not a nation, but a way of life. It seemed that nothing could surprise us anymore. European leaders – idiots, weaklings, nothings. But no, they gave us another reason. They want to return Romania’s gold,” Medvedev wrote in a post on his Vkontakte page, the Russian equivalent of Facebook.   The former Russian president and prime minister says that the Soviet government nationalized Romania’s treasury in 1918 for Romania’s “misbehavior” and that later our country refused to “pay its debts” to the “Soviet Empire”. “Romania agreed to this and then got a reparations waiver from us for its Nazi period during World War II. Well, now, again, the appetite has been revived in various idiots in the European Parliament,” he continued. “Well, I really don’t know how to respond to such impudence. The EU stole assets of 300 billion dollars from Russia and demands to return the gold to Romania”, Medvedev also noted, referring to the Russian assets frozen by the EU bloc.   After the European Parliament has Okayed in a historic vote a resolution on Thursday, through which MEPs have unanimously asked that Russia return Romania’s treasure, Russia claims that Romania is the debtor in fact, and that Romania’s debts to Russia would exceed 20-25 times the value of the entire Romanian treasury.   “Romania is trying to put its century-old phantom debts on Russia’s shoulders, in order to improve the disastrous state of its national economy,” the spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram, quoted by RIA Novosti.   She claimed that Romania’s debts to Russia and the Soviet Union exceed, “according to experts’ calculations”, 20-25 times the value of the entire Romanian treasury that arrived in Russia in 1916-1917.   Komsomolskaia Pravda writes, quoting the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, that in 1949 Moscow “forgave Romania almost all its debt for the destruction caused during the Second World War.” The Russian publication also writes that in 2022, Romania asked Russia to pay 4 billion euros to its treasury.   The resolution adopted by the European Parliament yesterday recognizes Romania’s right to recover its treasure stolen by Moscow or to obtain compensation in exchange for it. The Treasury contains significant amounts of gold, heritage objects, art collections, jewels. In case of negotiations with Russia, after the end of the war in Ukraine, the European Union could use the document to impose conditions on Moscow.