The 79-metre high obelisk of the "Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia" could be seen from afar in the Latvian capital Riga.

Now he's disappearing: On Thursday, construction workers began dismantling it after the two days before the sculptures to the right and left of him had been dismantled - a group of Soviet soldiers and a female figure that was supposed to symbolize "Mother Homeland".

Latvian President Egils Levits said Thursday the monument contradicts Latvia's values ​​because it glorifies the Soviet occupation.

Russia threatens Latvia with countermeasures because of the dismantling of the monument.

Reinhard Veser

Editor in Politics.

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Until the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, calls for the monument to be demolished failed to gain a majority in Latvia.

That all changed within a few weeks after the atrocities committed by the Russian army in Ukraine in the spring.

In May, parliament rescinded that article of the 1994 Latvian-Russian Neighborhood Agreement in which both sides pledged to protect monuments.

In mid-June, it passed a law demolishing all Soviet monuments in Latvia.

Different views of history in Latvia

The dismantling of this monument is politically sensitive because it reflects the different views of history held by the Latvians and the large Russian-speaking population.

While, from a Latvian point of view, the German occupation was replaced by the Soviet occupation in 1945, as a result of which tens of thousands were deported to Siberia, every year tens of thousands of Russian speakers in Riga celebrated the anniversary of the end of the war as "Victory Day" by bringing flowers to the "Liberators' Monument". .

However, only a few dozen people gathered to protest against the dismantling, and a total of 27 people were temporarily arrested.

Dismantling of Soviet war memorials has also started in Lithuania and Estonia in view of the war in Ukraine.

After a Soviet T-34 tank was taken from its memorial pedestal and taken to a museum in Estonia last week in Narva on the border with Russia, the country was exposed to massive cyber attacks.

The relocation of a Soviet war memorial from the center of the Estonian capital Tallinn to a cemetery in May 2007 led to unrest in which more than 100 people were injured and one dead.