Demolition of monuments to Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine

Overview

In 1991, Ukraine had 5,500 Lenin monuments.^[2] More than 700 Lenin monuments were removed and/or destroyed between February 2014 and December 2015.^[2] In November 2015, approximately 1,300 Lenin monuments were still standing.^[2]

According to a December 2024 report by Radio Svoboda, the demolition of Lenin monuments in Ukraine had so far happened in three stages:^[3]

1. During the 1990s, more than 2,000 Lenin monuments were demolished in western Ukraine, mostly in Volhynia and Galicia west of the river Zbruch;
2. in 2005–2008, more than 600 were demolished mainly in central oblasts, and some western oblasts; and
3. in 2013–2014, during Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity, 552 monuments were demolished.^[3]

1990s

The first wave of demolitions of Lenin monuments happened in Western Ukraine in 1990–1991. On 1 August 1990 in Chervonohrad (renamed Sheptytskyi in 2024), a Lenin monument was demolished for the first time in the USSR.^[4][5] Under popular pressure the monument was dismantled, formally with the purpose of moving elsewhere. That same year, Lenin monuments were dismantled in Ternopil, Kolomyia, Nadvirna, Borislav, Drohobych, Lviv and other cities of Galicia.^[6]

2005–2008

According to Radio Svoboda, about 600 Lenin monuments were dismantled or removed from 2005 to 2008, primarily in the central oblasts of Ukraine, as well as a few western ones.^[3] Unlike the wild wave of the early 1990s in Western Ukraine that was accompanied by waving national flags and shouting "Glory to Ukraine!", this was usually a rather formal and administrative process.^[3] It was marked by signs such as "taken away for repairs", "fallen apart due to age", "removed due to a state of emergency", and so on.^[3] There was no nationwide discussion on the topic of removing totalitarian symbols and toponymy in this period; the subject was usually limited to agitation in right-wing political circles, as well as representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia who reasoned it was time to get rid of these Lenin monuments.^[3]

When on 30 June 2009, a group of five young nationalist guys including Mykola Kokhanivskyi defaced the Vladimir Lenin monument on Khreshchatyk near the Bessarabska Square in a failed attempt to topple it, this caused widespread outrage; they were arrested and prosecuted, and even condemned by the nationalist organisation they were members of.^[3][7] While president Viktor Yushchenko had also previously asked for the statue to be removed, this proposal did not gain enough support at the time.^[7] The vandalised monument was eventually restored, and the decision postponed, marking the end of the second stage of Leninopad.^[3]

Communist monuments toppled during Euromaidan (2013–2014)

Starting on 8 December 2013,^[3] Euromaidan protesters toppled several statues of Vladimir Lenin in Ukrainian cities.^[8][9][10] The first Lenin to fall was the Khreshchatyk monument near Bessarabska Square in Kyiv, the same one that was vandalised but restored in 2009.^[3] Some estimates said that more than a hundred statues were toppled.^[11] In December 2015, The Ukrainian Week calculated that 376 Lenin monuments were removed or destroyed in February 2014 alone, when the Revolution of Dignity occurred.^[2] Radio Svoboda stated that between December 2013 and December 2014, "552 monuments to Lenin and several dozen more monuments to other Bolshevik leaders have been dismantled in Ukraine."^[3]

This is a partial list:

More information Landmark, Location ...

Landmark	Location	Date	Status	Notes	Image
Statue of Lenin	Andriievo-Ivanove	3 January 2014	Broken in two	Police launched an investigation based on a Criminal Code article entitled "Destruction of, or Damage to, Monuments of History or Culture".[12]
Statue of Lenin	Berdychiv	22 February 2014	Toppled and destroyed	[13][14]
Statue of Lenin	Bila Tserkva	2014	Toppled and destroyed	[8][15]
Statue of Lenin	Chernihiv	21 February 2014	Toppled	[16][17]
Statue of Lenin	Chervona Sloboda	8 July 2014	Toppled	According to the Ukrainian Communist Party "a criminal case has been opened over the act of vandalism".[18][19]
Statue of Lenin	Kharkiv	28 September 2014	Toppled and destroyed
Statue of Lenin	Kherson	7 February 2013	Destroyed	[20]
Statue of Lenin	Khmelnytskyi	21 February 2014	Toppled	[8][15][21]
Statue of Lenin	Korosten	5 October 2014	Toppled
Statue of Lenin	Kyiv	8 December 2013	Toppled and destroyed	[9]
Statue of Lenin	Melitopol	5 July 2015	Dismantled by the City Council
Statue of Lenin	Novomoskovsk	2 August 2015	Toppled	[22]
Statue of Lenin	"Pressmash" Factory, Odesa	23 October 2015	Transformed into a statue of Darth Vader	[23]
Statue of Lenin	Podilsk	8 December 2013	Broken into several pieces	[12]
Statue of Lenin	Pryluky		Dismantled
Bust of Lenin	Sievierodonetsk	1 October 2014	Set on fire and dismantled	[24]
Statue of Lenin	Stanytsia Luhanska	16 April 2015	Toppled
Statue of Lenin	Velyki Sorochyntsi		Dismantled
Statue of Lenin	Zaporizhzhia	17 March 2016	Dismantled	[25]
Statue of Lenin	Zhytomyr	21 February 2014	Toppled and destroyed	[8][15][26]

Close

Post-Euromaidan

On 9 April 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed legislation on decommunization.^[27] On 15 May 2015, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed this bill into law that started a six-month period for the removal of communist monuments (excluding World War II monuments) and the mandatory renaming of settlements with names related to Communism.^[28] On 16 January 2017, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance announced that 1,320 Lenin monuments were dismantled during decommunization.^[29]

A website "Raining Lenins"^[30] tracks the statistics of the fall of Lenin statues in Ukraine.^[6]

On 17 March 2016, the largest Lenin monument at the unoccupied territory of Ukraine, 19.8 meters high, was dismantled in Zaporizhzhia.^[31] In between the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by the Russian Federation and 28 September 2014, the largest Lenin monument at the unoccupied territory was standing in Kharkiv (20.2 m high).^[32][33] This statue of Lenin in Kharkiv was toppled and destroyed on 28 September 2014.^[34]

In February 2019, The Guardian reported that the two Lenin statues in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone were the only two remaining statues of Lenin in Ukraine, if not taking into account occupied territories of Ukraine.^[35] In January 2021 "Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty" located three more remaining Lenin statues in three (Ukrainian controlled) small villages. This increased the number of remaining Lenin statues to five.^[36]

During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many of these statues of Lenin, which had been taken down by Ukrainian activists, were re-erected by Russian occupiers in Russian-controlled areas.^{[37][38][39][40]}

Map

Kyiv

Map showing the removal, destruction and damage to monuments to Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine from 8 December 2013 to present

 — Kyiv, in which the monuments were dismantled or demolished during the relevant period

 — Oblast capitals, in which monuments were dismantled or demolished during the relevant period

 — City, in which the monuments were dismantled or demolished during the relevant period

 — Rural settlements, villages, Urban-type settlements, in which the monuments were dismantled or demolished during the relevant period