Lenin is ‘no more’ in Ukraine as his statues are removed

STATUES and busts of Vladimir Lenin have been torn down in every city across Ukraine as part of a “decommunisation” drive.

Volodymyr Vyatrovych, head of Ukraine’s institute of national memory, told Liga.net that 2,389 monuments, including 1,320 to Lenin, had been removed.

“Lenin is no more in cities in Ukrainian-controlled territory,” he said.

However, some monuments to Lenin are thought to remain in villages or on factory grounds and “can be dismantled only when found”.

The revolutionary also lives on in the breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine.

Most Lenin statues were gypsum with no historical value, Mr Vyatrovych said, and were destroyed. Those made of valuable metals were melted down, while a few dozen large monuments were saved for a museum of propaganda to be set up in Kiev.

The topplings, known as the “Leninfall”, began when protesters pulled down one in Kiev during the Euromaidan protests that removed Viktor Yanukovych, the president.