Last Lenin monument destroyed in Ukraine (PHOTOS)

The statue has become the latest victim of Kiev’s drive to erase its Soviet and Russian heritage

Ukrainian authorities have dismantled the country’s last statue of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, authorities and activists reported on Monday. The move is part of Kiev’s long-time decommunization campaign, which in practice is also aimed at diminishing the country’s historical ties with Russia.

The monument stood in the village of Rudkovtsy in the western Khmelnytskyi Region and was taken down by the local utility service following a request from activists with the group “Decolonization. Ukraine.”

The project, which promotes the removal of Soviet and Russian symbols, said in a post on Telegram that this was the last known Lenin monument in the country.

In a letter shared by the group, local authorities confirmed that the utility services had cleared the site and began transporting the remnants to a landfill. Photographs from the area taken before the dismantlement showed the statue in severe disrepair, with the face worn away beyond recognition.

Ukraine had around 5,500 Lenin statues at the time of independence in 1991. Most were dismantled following the adoption of decommunization laws in 2015, which banned communist-era symbols, the country’s Communist Party, and required the renaming of towns and streets bearing Soviet-related names.

In practice, however, the legislation – as well as the 2023 Decolonization law – were used by Kiev to remove monuments to and products of Ukraine’s historical ties with Russia. While the 2015 law also de jure condemned Nazism, Moscow has repeatedly pointed out that Kiev is openly encouraging the ideology.

Commenting on the development, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that “Ukraine is now well known for its fight against monuments,” adding that Kiev “is trying to get ahead of all of Europe” in this regard and this campaign “does not paint the Kiev regime in good light”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that modern Ukraine was essentially “created” by the Bolsheviks, who “carved off parts of Russia’s historical territory” to accomplish this goal.