Russian occupiers in Mariupol plan to bring back the monument to the executioner. The Mariupol City Council reports that a so-called “initiative group of Mariupol youth from the LKSM RF organization” has launched a campaign to return the monument to Vladimir Lenin, ArmInform reports.
During and after the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin’s government waged war on the Ukrainian government and population. Bolshevik troops, under Lenin’s direction, massacred the population of Kyiv in 1918, killing hundreds or possibly thousands of civilians, including religious leaders and intellectuals.
The Russians claim that Mariupol is the “only large city” in the occupied territory without a statue of the leader.
They call this step a “restoration of justice” after the demolition of monuments to Soviet figures by the Ukrainian authorities.
After the full-scale invasion began, Russian forces destroyed 90% of Mariupol. Activists and researchers say that 120,000 people may have been killed in the city out of 422,000. The exact number is still unknown. Many people died under rubble without any help, and the elderly took their own lives, realizing no medication or food would come.
The Lenin monument was dismantled at Freedom Square in Mariupol in 2014 during the wave of decommunization. By 2020, the square had been completely renovated: it became a modern public space with 25 metal doves—symbols of peace, freedom, and unity of all regions of Ukraine.
After the occupation of the city, the invaders began erecting monuments to killers — “heroes of the special military operation.” At the same time, they have repeatedly initiated the return of the monument to the “leader of the proletariat.”