Kiev Removes Soviet Coat of Arms from “Motherland” Statue
On the eve of the 32nd anniversary of Ukraine’s independence and the 17th month of Russia’s full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine, the Soviet national emblem on the giant “Motherland” statue in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, has been replaced by the national emblem of Ukraine’s Trident.
This giant sculpture depicts a woman holding a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. The shield, measuring eight-by-thirteen meters, previously featured the Soviet national emblem composed of a sickle and axe but will now display the Ukrainian trident national emblem.
Workers have already started the process of removing the Soviet state emblem from the statue, which was unveiled in 1981 by Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a decade before the Soviet Union’s collapse.
The reconstruction of the statue is expected to be fully completed by August 24, which marks Ukraine’s Independence Day. This symbolic change follows Ukraine’s 2015 legislation that required the removal of symbols of Soviet communism from public spaces and the renaming of places named after Communist figures. The process of de-communism in Ukraine gained momentum after Russia launched its war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022.
A poll conducted last year shows that the majority of Ukrainians support the removal of symbols associated with the Soviet era. The “Motherland” statue, standing in front of the World War II Museum in Kiev, is 62 meters high and is one of the tallest sculptures in the world. With its base, the statue reaches a height of 102 meters and weighs nearly 500 tons, making it 16 meters taller than the Statue of Liberty in New York.
The change to the “Motherland” statue reflects Ukraine’s ongoing efforts to distance itself from the Soviet past and assert its national identity.