MOSCOW, December 14. /TASS/. At least 289 Soviet monuments have been demolished in Ukraine’s western Lvov region in 2023, Anna Gerich, head of a group overseeing decommunization under the Lvov regional military administration, said.

"So far, 289 objects (monuments - TASS) have been demolished in the Lvov region, <…> which the working group managed to detect in all the seven districts since the beginning of 2023," Gerich said, as quoted by the Ukrinform news agency.

Gerich pointed out that two regional communities are not eager to demolish Soviet monuments, calling them "problematic." One of them, the Lopatin territorial community, still has eleven monuments. There are a total of 22 Soviet monuments in the region, according to the activist.

Despite Ukraine’s campaign to erase its Soviet past, known as ‘decommunization’, especially prevalent in its western part, there are still people who preserve the memory of Soviet soldiers. Thus, Oleg Radik, advisor to the Lvov regional military administration’s head, said that in Smykov, the village head prevented a monument to a Soviet soldier from being demolished by standing in front of it.

The campaign to take down monuments to Soviet and Russian figures in Ukraine began in 2015 after the enactment of the so-called decommunization law. By the beginning of 2022, the authorities had demolished more than 2,500 monuments, and changed the names of more than 900 populated areas and about 50,000 streets. In 2022, Kiev’s campaign against Russian and Soviet history and culture was reinvigorated. The Ukrainian Ministry of Culture said that 9,859 geographical names were changed and 145 monuments related to Russia were demolished.