In the early hours of Sunday reportedly thousands of Ukrainian
protesters in the nation’s war-torn east toppled a 28-foot tall
statue of Soviet Russian leader and icon Vladimir Lenin.
When the statue came down, Ukraine’s interior minister wrote on
Facebook, “Lenin? Let him fall. As long as this bloody communist
idol does not take more victims with it when it goes.” Lenin was
responsible for mass killings of countless thousands
in Ukraine and other countries in the Soviet sphere of
influence.
As this Lenin monument fell, the regional governor signed a last
minute order OKing its demolition. The BBC suggests this
was “to save face” while The Independent
suggests it was done as “a way to decriminalize the actions of
the protesters.”
“Some 168 Lenin monuments have been destroyed in Ukraine since
the first
was felled in the capital of Kiev last December” when a
pro-democracy, pro-western began, notes Mashable, which
also points out that some of Ukraine’s aggressive nationalists
participated in this weekend’s toppling.
Elsewhere in Eastern Europe, people have
been
defacing old Soviet monuments to tick off Russia. One Polish
town actually erected a
new statue of the dictator; He’s a garish neon green and is
taking an undignified piss.
The latest statue was located in the central square of Kharkiv,
Ukraine’s second largest city. It borders Russia, and Russian
President Vladimir Putin hopes will become part of a breakaway “New
Russia.” A poll conducted by a major Russian political opposition
leader suggests that the vast majority of Kharkiv residents
do not want to be more
closely aligned with Russia, though.
Despite a ceasefire signed earlier this month between the
Ukrainian government and the forces Putin supports (Russians,
Chechens,
other mercenaries, and
some locals), the war looks to be ramping up again with
high death tolls reported this weekend south of Kharkiv in the
Donetsk region.
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