---
title: "Ukraine presses ahead with removal of Soviet monuments"
url: https://moldova1.md/p/21314/ukraine-presses-ahead-with-removal-of-soviet-monuments
published: 2023-12-09T17:38:26Z
language: en
section: "International"
source: moldova1.md
---

# Ukraine presses ahead with removal of Soviet monuments

> Ukrainian officials pressed on with a campaign to remove Soviet-era monuments on Saturday as authorities in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv dismantled a statue of a Red Army commander from a central boulevard, Reuters reports.

Ukrainian officials pressed on with a campaign to remove Soviet-era monuments on Saturday as authorities in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv dismantled a statue of a Red Army commander from a central boulevard, Reuters reports.

![](https://storage.moldova1.md/images/99df4358-28c7-41a0-ad22-f58390b0f044.jpg)

Ukraine has doubled down on efforts to erase all traces of Russian rule amid a full-scale invasion by Kremlin troops, now nearing its two-year mark.

Municipal workers on Saturday carefully hoisted the hulking statue of Mykola Shchors, a Soviet field commander during the Russian Civil War, off its pedestal.

The structure had occupied a prominent spot on a central artery named after Ukraine's national poet.

Onlookers stopped to watch and photograph as a giant crane lowered the horse-riding Shchors onto a flatbed truck.

Kyiv city councillor Leonid Yemets told Reuters the statue would be moved to a museum.

Authorities in Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa dismantled a prominent statue of Catherine the Great last year after a months-long campaign by activists.

Thousands of Ukrainian streets and settlements have also been renamed in recent years as part of a de-communisation campaign launched after the 2014 Maidan Revolution, which toppled a pro-Russian leader.