Ukraine Tears Down Giant Lenin Statue
Ukraine has torn down its largest remaining statue of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin.
A crane lifted the 40-ton statue off its pedestal in the southeastern city of Zaporizhia on March 17 and placed it beside the plinth.
The 60-year-old monument fell victim to so-called “decommunization” laws.
Nearly 1,000 statues of Lenin have been toppled in Ukraine and thousands of streets, squares, towns, villages, companies, and other social entities and geographical locations must be renamed under controversial laws, passed last year, that condemn the communist Soviet and Nazi German regimes and ban any propaganda, symbols, or names associated with them.
Russia’s military-backed takeover of Crimea in March 2014 and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine since April 2014 has given much impetus to Ukraine’s efforts to break with its Soviet past.
Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called on the EU to move forward with proposed sanctions on Russia over the imprisonment of Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko. Poroshenko told RFE/RL in Brussels that Savchenko's continued detention in Russia is a "brutal violation of national and international law."
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told RFE/RL in Brussels that Kyiv had completed the reforms needed to move forward on implementing visa-free travel to the European Union.
Here is today's map of the latest situation in the Donbas conflict zone, courtesy of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry (CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE):
In today's Daily Vertical, Brian Whitmore gives us his take on the issuance of "passports" in separatist-held Donetsk:
