The Ukrainian ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina has demanded that Sarajevo return a gilded Ukrainian Orthodox icon that the country’s ethnic Serb president attempted to give as a gift to Russia’s foreign minister earlier this month.
The embassy has also demanded that the Bosnia-Herzegovina authorities provide Ukraine with information on how the icon wound up in the Balkan country.
The icon is reportedly 300 years old and comes from the city of Luhansk, which is currently occupied by Russia-backed militants. That raises the possibility that it was stolen after the seizure of the city.
“The absence of an answer (to our question) or a delay with it gives us grounds to consider the transfer of the icon to the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina illegal,” Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Kyrylych the Ukrainska Pravda news site. “This is a question of principle, and the answer to it must be quick and unambiguous. Not in the media, but officially.”
Previously, Ukrainian authorities have said Sarajevo’s failure to provide information on the icon’s origins was tantamount to supporting Russian aggression against Ukraine, the Evropeiska Pravda news site reported, citing Bosnian media.
On Dec. 14, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Sarajevo, where he met with Milorad Dodik, the ethnic Serb representative and current chairman of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s three-member presidency. During the meeting, the Bosnian leader gave Lavrov the gilded icon.
After local media reported on the gift, a diplomatic scandal erupted and the Ukrainian embassy demanded an explanation from Bosnia-Herzegovina’s foreign ministry.
Soon, Russia said that it would return the icon to Sarajevo to clarify its origins through international police cooperation agency Interpol.
Later, on Dec. 23, Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture announced that a stamp on the back of the icon, which was visible in photos circulated in Bosnian media, marked it as historical heritage.
The very presence of the stamp “indicates that this icon is the property of the state of Ukraine,” Deputy Culture Minister Iryna Fomenko said, according to a statement released by the ministry.
In his comment to Ukrainska Pravda, Kyrylych said that there had been no official confirmation that Russia had returned the icon to Sarajevo.
“If the first step is taken and the icon is returned to Sarajevo… then the second must also be completed: returning it to Ukraine,” he said.
In 2014, local militants and Russian forces seized control of Ukraine’s Donbas region, eventually coming to illegally occupy wide swaths of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast. Several Bosnian Serbs are known to have fought in the Donbas on the side of the Russian-backed militants.
This has led to speculation in Ukraine that Serb fighters might have removed the icon from Ukraine.
