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  • 3 years ago
This was the most important and most visible signs of Russian influence in Ukraine. But now, the references to Russian influence are gone after Ukraine purged one of its tallest statues of the Russian influence. The towering Mother Ukraine statue in Kyiv — one of the nation’s most recognizable landmarks — lost its hammer-and-sickle symbol yesterday as officials replaced the Soviet-era emblem with Ukraine’s trident coat of arms. the figure held a sword in her right hand and a shield in her left. Originally, the shield bore the Soviet Union’s coat of arms – a crossed hammer and sickle surrounded by ears of wheat. But now, the Soviet Union’s coat of arms has been replaced with Ukrainian’s. Erected in 1981 as part of a larger complex housing the national World War II museum, the 61-meter Mother Ukraine monument stands on the right bank of the Dnieper River in Kyiv, facing eastward toward Moscow. Created in the image of a fearless female warrior, the statue holds a sword and a shield. But now, instead of the hammer-and-sickle emblem, the shield features the Ukrainian tryzub, the trident that was adopted as the coat of arms of independent Ukraine on Feb. 19, 1992. Workers had begun removing the old emblem in late July, but poor weather and ongoing air raids delayed the work. The completed sculpture will be officially unveiled on Aug. 24 — Ukraine’s Independence Day. The revamp also coincides with a new name for the statue, which was previously known as the “Motherland monument” when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.

#Motherukrainestatuepurged #Motherukrainestatue #Motherukrainemonument
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00:00 This was the most important and most visible signs of Russian influence in Ukraine.
00:05 But now, the references to Russian influence are gone after Ukraine purged one of its tallest
00:11 statues.
00:12 The towering Mother Ukraine statue in Kiev, one of the nation's most recognizable landmarks,
00:17 lost its hammer and sickle symbol yesterday as officials replaced the Soviet-era emblem
00:23 with Ukraine's strident coat of arms.
00:25 The figure held a sword in her right hand and a shield in her left.
00:29 Originally, the shield bore the Soviet Union's coat of arms, a crossed hammer and sickle
00:34 surrounded by years of wheat.
00:36 But now, the Soviet Union's coat of arms has been replaced with Ukrainian's.
00:41 Erected in 1981 as part of a larger complex housing the National World War II Museum,
00:47 the 61-meter Mother Ukraine monument stands on the right bank of the Dnieper River in
00:52 Kiev facing eastward towards Moscow.
00:55 Created in the image of a fearless female warrior, the statue holds a sword and a shield.
01:00 But now, instead of the hammer and sickle emblem, the shield features the Ukrainian
01:05 trident that was adopted as the coat of arms of independent Ukraine on 19 February 1992.
01:12 Workers had begun removing the old emblem in late July, but poor weather and ongoing
01:17 air raids had delayed the work.
01:18 The completed sculpture will be officially unveiled on August 24, on Ukraine's Independence
01:24 Day.
01:25 The new stamp also coincides with a new name for the statue, which was previously known
01:28 as the Motherland Monument when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.
01:33 The change is just one part of a long effort in Ukraine to erase the vestiges of Soviet
01:38 and Russian influence from its public spaces, often by removing monuments and renaming streets
01:43 to honour Ukrainian artists, poets and soldiers instead of Russian cultural figures.
01:49 Most Soviet and Communist Party symbols were outlawed in Ukraine in 2015, but that did
01:54 not include World War II monuments such as the Mother Ukraine statue.
01:58 For many in Ukraine, the Soviet past is synonymous with Russian imperialism, the oppression of
02:03 the Ukrainian language and the Holodomor, a man-made famine under Joseph Stalin that
02:09 killed millions of Ukrainians and has since been recognised as an act of genocide by both
02:14 the European Parliament and the United States.
02:18 The movement away from Soviet symbols has accelerated since Russia's full-scale invasion
02:22 of Ukraine, where assertions of national identity have become an important show of unity as
02:28 the country struggles under the horror of war.
02:32 Across Ukraine, hundreds of statues of Russian poets and Soviet generals were torn down or
02:36 defaced and public art and propaganda murals were covered up or removed.
02:41 Thousands of streets and dozens of towns and villages were renamed.
02:45 Streets and squares previously named after Soviet Party leaders or generals were given
02:49 names associated with national history or prominent Ukrainians.
02:55 The move has its roots in a movement to decommunise or shed memories of the former Soviet Union,
03:01 which Ukraine has stepped up since Russia's fallout invasion last year.
03:05 That cultural shift to a stronger Ukrainian self-identity was accompanied in recent years
03:10 by a political tilt to the West that infuriated Vladimir Putin and was part of his justification
03:15 for invading Ukraine.
03:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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