A statue of Mikhail Lomonosov is dismantled in Dnipro
(Picture: via REUTERS)A bronze monument to Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov has been dismantled and removed from the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
Footage shows construction workers using a large crane to lift the statue from its base, before loading it onto a flatbed truck, strapping it in place and driving away.
The monument was installed in the city in June 1971. It is the last statue associated with the Soviet era to be removed in Dnipro, after those depicting Alexander Pushkin and Russian soldier Alexander Matrosov were also torn down.
Cities across Ukraine have been taking down monuments to Russian figures and renaming streets since the invasion last February.
Last month, Odessa pulled down its monument to Catherine the Great and Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced that 30 more road names would be changed.
In December, Dnipro’s Mayor Borys Filatov said that all Russia and Soviet-related monuments would be removed and taken to storage.
Volodymyr Prokopiv, deputy head of the Kyiv City Council, said Ukraine’s “de-Communization” policy since 2015 had been applied in a “soft” way so as not to offend sensitivities among the country’s Russian-speaking and even pro-Moscow population.
“With the war, everything changed. Now the Russian lobby is now powerless – in fact, it doesn’t exist,” Mr Prokopiv said in an interview with The Associated Press in his office overlooking Khreschatik Street, the capital’s main thoroughfare.
“Renaming these streets is like erasing the propaganda that the Soviet Union imposed on Ukraine.”
Under the “de-Communization” program, about 200 streets were renamed in Kyiv before this year. In 2022 alone, that same number of streets have been renamed and another 100 are scheduled to get renamed soon, Mr Prokopiv said.
