Academic Secretary of the Institute of Ukrainian Politics Alexey Poltorakov on Ukraine’s inevitable departure from the Soviet past: “Ukraine from a post-Soviet country, like Russia, Belarus, some countries of the Caucasus, Central Asia, is becoming post-post-Soviet, like Poland, like the Baltic states, like some other countries of Central Europe and so on. Almost all modern European countries have gone through this path through nationalism, starting with Spain, which renounced Francoism for a long time, painfully and painfully, ending with Greece, which renounced the regime of the black colonels in the 50-60s, Turkey and Ataturk. etc. In principle, for Ukraine this is a natural and, in a sense, inevitable process, according to the principle “this should have been done.” On the one hand, this should have been done earlier, we lost, if not 20 years, but a lot. On the other hand, this still had to be done more softly, not as an unambiguous sharp radical step. Although, to complete the picture, it is worth remembering that the starting point, the bifurcation point of this process was the process of “Leninfall” in the winter of last year, which took place on the crest of the Maidan. Even then, Ukraine began to renounce its Soviet, post-Soviet past."

On the desire of Ukrainians to get rid of monuments to the USSR: “There is a latent public consensus regarding de-Sovietization, there is an understanding that this needs to be done. In the end, Ukraine is full of monuments to those people who, not only were not involved in Ukraine, were not there at all “There are monuments to somewhat odious individuals who have done more bad than good to Ukraine. Therefore, there is still a latent social demand, but it is graded according to age categories: among young people it is more, among the older generation it is less.”

About monuments to Lenin: “On the one hand, this is a healthy reaction, on the other hand, we, especially at the end of the Soviet Union, I myself, as I experienced this period, felt that we were overfed with this ideology, when in every city there is a main street of Lenin, on Lenin Street there is Lenin Square, on Lenin Square there is a monument to Lenin, and so on. I was born and raised in the city of Izmail, it’s on the border with Romania, we got to the point that in the city there was a monument to Lenin, which sits on a bench, and. another big Lenin is looking at him opposite with an outstretched hand - it came to paradoxes. I would say this: burning out this modern history is a return to more ancient history."

"Ukraine from a post-Soviet country becomes post-post-Soviet"