KYIV (AP) — City workers in Kyiv on Saturday dismantled an equestrian statue of a Red Army commander, the latest Soviet monument to be removed in the Ukrainian capital since Russia launched its full-scale invasion last year.
The statue of Mykola Shchors on horseback, erected in the 1950s, was taken down from a pedestal in downtown Kyiv to the applause of a small group of onlookers. City officials said it will be stored in the State Aviation Museum.
“Derussification and decommunization are continuing. We have already dismantled more than 60 monuments related to the history and culture of Russia and the Soviet Union,” Mykhailo Budilov, director of the city’s Department of Territorial Control, said in a statement.
An effort to remove symbols of the Soviet era, which many Ukrainians equate with Russian imperialism, accelerated after Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
In August of this year, officials removed a hammer-and-sickle symbol from the Mother Ukraine statue in Kyiv — one of the country’s most recognizable landmarks — and replaced it with Ukraine’s trident coat of arms.
On Saturday, a few dozen…
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