Ukraine replaces Soviet emblem with trident on tallest monument
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Works on the Fatherland Mother have been taking place since mid-July.
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Workers install the Ukrainian coat of arms on the shield in the hand of the country's tallest statue, the Motherland Monument after the Soviet coat of arms was removed, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Aug. 6, 2023
As part of Kiev's latest efforts to remove any symbols remaining cultural symbols from the Soviet era or any ties to Russia, Ukraine authorities on Sunday completed the replacement of the Soviet emblem on the country's tallest statue with Ukraine's trident coat of arms.
Works on the Fatherland Mother have been taking place since July.
The 62-meter-tall statue stands on the bank of the Dnieper River and now showcases a trident on its shield while construction workers are working to make final adjustments.
The statue was erected in 1981 as a memorial to the Soviet victory in WWII. In what looks to be part of efforts aimed at rejecting Soviet narratives regarding WWII and the victory over nazism, the statue was renamed Ukraine Mother to rid its previous name of Soviet associations.
As for the hammer and sickle, authorities said they will be displayed in a museum.
According to the director of the museum, Yuriy Savchuk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made the request for the trident to be raised, AFP reports.
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He further expressed hopes that Zelensky would attend an official opening.
"It's really nice that we've completed a certain stage of the work," he told AFP.
"It's a beautiful, sunny day, the Dnieper (river) is sparkling, there is no air alert. The trident is on the shield, Glory to Ukraine!," he said.
"Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes! Glory to the Armed Forces!", said the trident's sculptor Oleksiy Pergamenshchyk.
"I'm happy because it's just right -- it's not too big, not too small, not too thin -- it's just right," he told AFP.
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On August 1, Politico reported that many locals are questioning if adjusting the iconic Motherland monument to remove a hammer and sickle is the smartest way to use the country's wartime resources.
According to the report, not all Ukrainians agree that spending money on an anti-Russia gesture is a good idea as Moscow increases its drone and weapon production.
Viktor Prylypenko, a Ukrainian military medic, said work on the Motherland memorial was "definitely impractical" since "the army has a significant shortage of strike and reconnaissance drones." However, such spending also hurts army morale. This is not a "penny street renaming," but rather "costs millions of hryvnias."
Prylypenko said that the view from the frontline is that changing the statue is “a waste of money," also, "It is also a symptom of the lack of creating a state military strategy for civilian spending."
“We see how statesmen often go abroad to ask not only for weapons, but also for financial assistance, and right away, we see the waste of taxpayers’ money. If there was a strategy, we would see news on our channels about the inventions of our scientists for the military, the launch of production lines for domestic military equipment, the construction of reliable shelters … the involvement of businesses in the construction of shelters in residential complexes, the opening of local production lines for basic things such as masks, which are still woven by the hands of volunteers, the creation of quick-installation dugout modules, female engineers, etc.”
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