You're reading: Last major Lenin monument demolished in Ukrainian-controlled territory (VIDEO)

The last big Lenin monument in a major city controlled by Ukrainian authorities was demolished on March 16.

The Lenin
monument in the oblast capital Zaporizhzhia – the last one in Ukrainian-controlled regional capitals – was taken down by city authorities
to comply with the country’s decommunization law, which was passed last May and
aims to dismantle the Soviet Union’s totalitarian legacy.

The 19.8
meter monument, which weighs 40 tonnes, was Ukraine’s biggest Lenin statue.

Demolition works started on March 14 but were thwarted by technical problems.

The event
completes the demolition of Soviet monuments in central and southeastern
Ukraine, which started with the toppling of a Lenin statue on Bessarabska
Ploshcha in Kyiv during the EuroMaidan Revolution, on Dec. 8, 2013.

Lenin
monuments in western Ukrainian regional capitals were toppled in the 1990s,
while statues of the Soviet leader in Russian-occupied Crimea and Donbas still
remain untouched.

The Lenin monument in Zaporizhzhia being demolished.

Kyiv Post
staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at
[email protected].