Translated material
Empty pedestals
After clashes near the building where the trial of the Leninopol participants passed, former Minister Yuri Lutsenko was hospitalized
In recent years, there are often attacks on monuments to the Soviet leader. In various regions of the country, they are defiled and demolished. The “desovetization” campaign is actively conducted by nationalists from the Freedom party, which are opposed by the Communists. On January 10, for trying to undermine the monument to Vladimir Lenin, in Borispol, three right -wing radicals were condemned for six years of imprisonment.
A new wave of destruction of Soviet monuments began in Ukraine a month ago, after the monument to Lenin on the Boulevard of Taras Shevchenko opposite the Bessarabian market was destroyed in Kyiv. Before this statue fell into the capital of Soviet Ukraine in 1946, she visited the 1939 World Exhibition in New York, where she stood in the Soviet pavilion. In the summer of 2009, the monument was damaged by nationalists. After the restoration, the money for which the Communists raised, the sculpture of Vladimir Ilyich was returned to the place, and here it stood for a little more than four years. On the evening of December 8, 2013, after a rally in support of the Euromaidan, Liberty activists demolished Lenin. After the fall, the monument was defeated with sledgehammers, and fragments were dismantled to souvenirs.
A few hours after that, on the night of December 9, in one of the parks of the city of Kotovsk, Odessa region, the leader’s monument was defeated, on December 11 they rejected his hand and damaged Lenin's sculpture in the village of Khmelevoy, Kirovograd region. A week ago, a monument to the chief Bolshevik in Berdichev Zhytomyr region was dropped from the pedestal, and the day before, the statue of Lenin washeaded in the village of Mashevka, Poltava region. In recent weeks, dozens of Soviet monuments have been subjected to attacks, and the number of such cases continues to grow rapidly. According to these facts, the police, as a rule, initiates criminal proceedings under the article “Hooliganism”. The lawyers of the order are rarely found to find attackers.
A few years ago, in Ukraine, according to various estimates, there were from one to three thousand monuments to Vladimir Lenin. Not all of them fell into the state register, so local authorities do not allocate money for the maintenance of many monuments of the Soviet period, and over time they are self -destroyed, as happened on January 4 with the sculpture of Lenin near Odessa.
Political scientist Alexander Pali believes that the demolition of monuments to Soviet idols is the result of the revolutionary situation that has developed in Ukraine.
- People want to dismantle the symbols of the old system that the current government inherited. And it is obvious that most of these cases are a spontaneous manifestation of people who cannot come to the Kiev Maidan and want to do something in their place.
According to the member of the Communist faction in the Verkhovna Rada Alexander Golub , the events of the last weeks show that not only monuments to Lenin are destroyed, but also abuse of the graves of soldiers who fell during the Great Patriotic War.
-This is a vivid evidence that Ukraine in ideological terms makes a decisive turn to national fascism. And the authorities do not counteem for these processes. On the contrary, she even supports and cherishes extreme right -wing political organizations so that one of their leaders can become an opponent of the current head of state in the future presidential election. These are very dangerous games.
As a rule, on the facts of desecration or destruction of Soviet monuments, the police initiates criminal cases under the article “Hooliganism”. However, two and a half years ago, the three activists of the Patriot Ukraine organization were arrested on charges of terrorism.
On January 10, the court in Kyiv recognized the members of this organization Igor Mosiychuk, Vladimir Shpar and Sergei Bevza guilty of preparing the explosion of the monument to Lenin in the city of Borispol (Kiev region), illegal handling of weapons and explosive substances, as well as calls for the overthrow of the constitutional order and condemned everyone to 6 years in prison.
After the lull on the Maidan, this judicial verdict led to the first serious clashes between the police special forces and the protesters after the New Year holidays. The confrontation with the “Berkut” first near the walls of the court, and then at the Svyatoshinsky District Department of Internal Affairs of Kyiv lasted until almost four o’clock in the morning of Saturday. As a result, five activists were hospitalized. The former Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the leader of the “Third Republic” movement Yuri Lutsenko, was beaten by the Berkut fighters, Yuri Lutsenko. He was diagnosed with a concussion, a closed head injury. “Yura became between people and the“ Berkutians ”to stop bloodshed. They mercilessly beat him on the head, blood poured into his face. They broke glasses. He fell, lost consciousness. I also got it ...”, the oppositionist’s wife Irina Lutsenko told reporters. Including in connection with these events on the Maidan they announced mobilization and expect that hundreds of thousands of opponents of the authorities will gather again for the next Sunday rally.