Russia wanted to return the Treasure to Romania, but Mugur Isărescu refused, and the gold was sent to Amsterdam, according to a false narrative promoted by retired Colonel Mircea Dogaru, a self-proclaimed admirer of Dugin. Dogaru essentially repeated a narrative promoted by pro-Russian “sovereignists” and intended to polish Moscow’s image.
NEWS: Romania’s World War I Treasure has been in Amsterdam for 20 years. Everyone is screaming that the Russians won’t give it back. The Russians did give it back. We didn’t meet the conditions. The Russians sent the treasure back to 72 countries; 71 received it, but we didn’t because the bank created to take over the treasure was shut down by the governor of the National Bank while they were loading the treasure to come here; now it’s in Amsterdam, not in Moscow.
NARRATIVE: The Russians wanted to return Romania’s Treasure, but the governor of the National Bank of Romania, Mugur Isărescu, prevented it.
OBJECTIVE: To cosmeticize Russia’s image, which many Romanians associate with a series of hostile acts against Romania, ranging from territorial seizures to the refusal to return the Treasure that was sent to Moscow for safekeeping during World War I. To amplify the “sovereignist” theory that Romania is being sold out to foreigners (“the global cabal”), and that only the Russians can ensure its security. To promote conspiracy theories against the banking system, which in Romania is allegedly under the control of “the Freemason Isărescu.”
After World War I, Romania has repeatedly requested that Russia return the Treasure, but Russia has refused
WHY THIS NARRATIVE IS FALSE: There is not a single diplomatic or historical document, official record, or independent archival evidence to support the claim that Russia was willing to return the gold to Romania, and that the National Bank of Bucharest refused or was unable to receive it.
On the contrary, there are documents attesting that while Romania has repeatedly and insistently requested the return of the Treasure, the Russians have either refused to do so or avoided the subject.
In the early 2000s, the “Joint Romanian-Russian Commission for the Study of Issues Arising from the History of Bilateral Relations, including the issue of the Romanian Treasure deposited in Moscow during World War I” was established. The Commission extensively debated the issue of the Treasure’s return without reaching any conclusion, so a discussion about gold that allegedly would have been returned but Romania refused, or that allegedly ended up elsewhere, lacks any logical or historical basis.
Moreover, even prominent pro-Russian figures such as Diana Șoșoacă claim that the Treasure is still in Russian hands. On a show hosted by Dan Diaconescu in November 2025, the extremist MEP from SOS Romania claimed that she had spoken with Valery Kuzmin, the former Russian ambassador to Romania, about the Treasure, and that he had asked her what would happen to the Treasure if Russia were to return it. Șoșoacă implied that the Romanian Treasure is, in fact, safe in Moscow because in Romania it would “be sold in two minutes.”
Beyond the lack of evidence to support retired Colonel Mircea Dogaru’s claim, the theory is also nonsensical given the historical context—in the 1990s, Romania was undergoing a profound social and economic crisis, so a massive infusion of gold into its reserves would have been an unexpected windfall. Furthermore, at least until 1996, Romania under Ion Iliescu maintained a friendly policy toward Moscow, and the relationship was not marked by the tensions seen today. On the other hand, even if it were true that Bucharest refused the gold, the question arises as to why Russia no longer wanted to return it, as the course of discussions within the Romanian-Russian Commission clearly shows.
In 2024, the European Parliament also called on Russia to return the Treasure to Romania. Marian Voicu, an expert on the Treasure issue*, noted in Veridica why, even though the EP resolution is a historic one, it is unlikely that the dispute will be resolved:
“For us, the Treasure issue is simple: we gave the Russians all our wealth, for safekeeping, with proper documentation. We’ve been asking for it back for 100 years. But for them, it is just as simple: if you insist on digging up the past, they will say, we might find that, in fact, you owe us for the property left in Romania during World War I, for the destruction caused by the Romanian army in the Soviet Union during World War II, for the non-payment of war reparations, for the occupation of Bessarabia, etc., etc., and even for the intervention of the Romanian army in Hungary in 1919 against the Hungarian Bolsheviks.”
Two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, historian Cosmin Popa explained to Veridica why Romania should take a tougher stance on recovering the gold and how compensation for the loss of the gold is “a moral and technical issue.”
The false narrative of the Russians returning the Treasure, promoted by pro-Russian sovereigntists
CONTEXT: Retired Colonel Mircea Dogaru is a declared admirer of Putin’s so-called ideologue, Alexandr Dugin, and has appeared since 2014 on the so-called Dugin list of Romanian supporters of Russia.
Dogaru’s claim that the Treasure is no longer in Russian hands is not even a new one; most recently, it was taken up by the pro-Russian, neo-Legionary-leaning Călin Georgescu, who, between the two rounds of the 2024 presidential election (the second of which would be cancelled), spoke on influencer Gojira’s podcast about how the “main Treasure” is no longer in Russian hands, but in London. Georgescu’s narrative was quickly picked up by his followers. London was likely chosen as the location of the Treasure because, since the 2000s, part of the gold reserve of the National Bank of Romania has been stored there for strategic, credibility, and security reasons, as well as to facilitate international transactions. This gold deposit has nothing in common with the Treasure sent by Romania to the Russian Empire during World War I, in the context of the conflict. It is unclear whether Georgescu made this confusion intentionally, to manipulate his electorate, or out of ignorance. In fact, retired Colonel Mircea Dogaru also drew a connection between the imaginary Treasure in Amsterdam and the gold reserve in London.
The Dacians, the Russians, and treacherous Albion: how the sovereignists are concocting a financial-historical mishmash of everything
The confusion between the Russian treasure supposedly in Amsterdam/London and Romania’s gold reserves is not the only one sown by the sovereignists, who somehow managed to bring up the Dacian treasure stolen in the Netherlands as well. Pro-Russian extremist Diana Șoșoacă claimed in November 2025 that the bracelets and helmet were not stolen, but rather taken through an agreement for a very important person in Romania, yet she asserted in the same TikTok video that the World War I Treasure was still in Russian hands.
The narrative promoted by retired Colonel Mircea Dogaru on the show hosted by former Antena journalist Dana Chera (Grecu) at the Metropola TV studio (de facto owned by the Pandele family) went viral on TikTok a few days after authorities announced that most of the artefacts stolen from the Drents Museum in Assen (Netherlands) had been recovered and would be returned to Romania.
The Soviets said they would return the Treasure, but only if Romania gave them Bessarabia
GRAIN OF TRUTH: In the 1920s, the Soviets proposed that Romania cede Bessarabia to them in exchange for the gold, but obviously Bucharest rejected the proposal, without ever relinquishing its claim to the Treasure. It was also during that period that rumours began to circulate that the Romanian gold had been sold by the Soviets.
Another reason why the false narrative regarding Moscow’s willingness to return the Treasure persists is that, on two occasions—during the interwar period and in the 1950s—the Soviets did make some returns: a few cultural artefacts, including the “Hen with Golden Chicks,” as well as part of the archives. This, however, does not refer to the gold bars that belonged to the National Bank. These represented only a portion of the Treasure sent to Moscow, which included, among other things, church items,
Note*: Marian Voicu produced a documentary for TVR on the history of the Romanian Treasure’s journey from its storage in the Russian Empire to the present day, and is the author of the book *Romania’s Treasure in Moscow: An Inventory of a Hundred-Year History*. In both works, he uses documents and testimonies from historians and politicians to trace both the fate of the Treasure and Romania’s attempts to recover it over the past 100 years.
