Kyiv demolishes a historical monument symbolizing the friendship between Ukraine and Russia

The Kyiv municipality on Tuesday demolished a historical monument from the Soviet era embodying the friendship between Ukraine and Russia, in a move that came in the wake of the war that Russian forces launched against Ukraine two months ago.

AFP reporters witnessed the fall of the head of one of the statues of a Russian worker and a Ukrainian holding a Soviet symbol with the words "friendship among peoples" in their hands, while trying to lift it in the center of Kyiv.

"Eight meters of the metal has been removed for what has been called the 'friendship of the two peoples''. What is symbolic is the fall of the head of the Russian worker," Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.

And he explained in a second message that "the monument was dismantled this evening with difficulty," considering that this symbolizes "the expulsion of the occupier" from Ukraine.

This massive Soviet-era bronze statue was erected in 1982 to commemorate the "reunification of Russia and Ukraine".

Klitschko justified this operation by Moscow's desire to "destroy the state and the Ukrainians by invading his country on February 24".

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