The human rights NGO Memorial, which investigates the repression that took place in Russia during the Soviet period, reported that tributes to soldiers killed in the war against Ukraine are proliferating across the country, at the same time that memorials dedicated to the victims of communism are being vandalized or removed.
In an interview with the Moscow Times newspaper, Alexandra Polivanova, a member of Memorial’s board of directors, said that the association found that at least 3,187 memorials in honor of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine had been opened in Russia since the start of the invasion in February last year. which represents an average of five per day.
These memorials include large installations, statues, plaques, murals, and other types of tributes.
However, according to Memorial, in the same period, at least 23 memorials in Russia dedicated to the victims of communism were vandalized or dismantled across the country.
“We are sure that all these actions are supported by the government in one way or another,” Polivanova said.
She highlighted that memorials that honor ethnic groups persecuted during Russia’s military expansion in the Soviet period are more targeted, such as a granite cross, in honor of the Poles victimized by Stalinism, which in July disappeared from the Levashovo Memorial Cemetery in Saint Petersburg, where they are located. buried more than 45 thousand victims from the period of the Great Terror implemented by dictator Josef Stalin.
Months earlier, a memorial to Ukrainian victims of Stalinist purges was vandalized in the same cemetery, according to the Moscow Times.
“It is not surprising that such monuments are not welcome at a time when Russia is again waging an imperial war of conquest,” Polivanova said.
Created in 1989, Memorial was banned in December 2021 by a Moscow court from continuing its activities in Russia, a decision that was confirmed the following year by an appeals court.
In October 2022, Memorial won the Nobel Peace Prize together with the Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties and Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski.
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