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Attempt to demolish monument to Soviet secret police fails

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An activist stands in front of a monument to Cheka officers in Kyiv on April 28.

Representatives of two nationalist groups - the OUN volunteer battalion and the Azov Civil Corps - on April 28 tried to demolish a monument in Kyiv to officers of the Soviet Union's Cheka secret police.

An attempt to destroy the 9-meter monument, which is located near the Lybidska metro station in Kyiv, failed. Subsequently the activists smeared the monument with red paint.

This is the fourth attempt to demolish or damage the monument. The previous three attempts took place in 2009, then during the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution, and then again in March 2014.

Under Ukraine’s decommunization law, the authorities were required to remove the monument by Feb. 21, 2016, but this did not happen.

The Cheka was Soviet Russia’s secret police and security agency from 1917 to 1922. It organized the Red Terror, which involved the killing of thousands of dissidents.