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Polish city to demolish WWII memorial

The authorities explain the decision, made amid numerous attempts to desecrate Soviet WWII memorial sites in Poland, by the monument’s poor condition.

WARSAW, November 30. /TASS/. The city council of the Polish city of Stargard Szczecinski decided to dismantle the Column of Victory memorial honoring the Red Army’s victory over the Nazi Germany, a regional information portal has said.

The authorities explain the decision, made amid numerous attempts to desecrate Soviet WWII memorial sites in Poland, by the monument’s poor condition. They say it will be partially reassembled at a local military cemetery.

The monument will be demolished until the end of the first quarter 2017.

The decision follows numerous attempts to deface WWII memorials to soldiers of the Red Army in Poland, which the Russian Foreign Ministry has described as the "mayhem of vandalism."

A Red Army monument in the Mazovia Province has been desecrated two times in summer and fall. Another monument to fallen Red Army soldiers, which had recently been renovated by the Polish public organization ‘Kursk’, was defaced anew in the Lower Silesia province, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in late September.