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Another monument to Vladimir Lenin vandalized in Ukraine

Persons responsible for this crime may face charges of hooligamism

© ITAR-TASS/Vladimir Smirnov

KIEV, January 06, 18:28 /ITAR-TASS/. Another monument to the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin has been vandalized in Ukraine as vandals completely destroyed Lenin’s statue in the city of Berdichev, a spokesman for the Zhitomir region police department said on Monday.

“Obviously, it was done by a group of persons, since it is practically impossible for one man to overthrow a two-metre high statue placed on a 1.75-metre high pedestal,” the spokesman said.

The incident took place overnight to Monday and recorded in the unified register of pre-trial investigations. Persons responsible for this crime may face charges of hooligamism.

Earlier vandals splattered black paint across the monument to Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine’s Odessa region, a spokesman for the regional interior ministry department, Colonel Vladimir Shablenko told Itar-Tass. “Unidentified persons threw a plastic package with black paint at the monument” in the neighbourhood centre Berezovka, he said, adding that vandals might face a fine of up to 500 or 1,000 minimal wages, six-month arrest or imprisonment of up to five years.

This has been not the first case of vandalism against monuments to and statues of Lenin. On December 8, a group of people in masks flying flags of the nationalist party Freedom toppled the statue of Lenin in the centre of Ukraine’s capital Kiev. On December 9, hooligans destroyed the monument to the revolutionary leader near a club of railway workers in Kotovsk, a town in the Odessa region. One more monument to Lenin was destroyed in the Nikolayevsk district, Odessa region, two days ago. But the monument suddenly dropped after its self-destroyed base collapsed.

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