Monument to Soviet soldiers in Lithuania is planned to be demolished by November 1

The monument to Soviet soldiers at the Antakalnis cemetery in Vilnius, where the largest burial place of the liberators of Lithuania (more than three thousand soldiers) is located, is planned to be dismantled before November 1, the press service of the Vilnius self-government reported.

According to the metropolitan municipality, the final decision on the transfer of sculptures to state ownership will be made at a council meeting on October 5. This will make it possible to begin dismantling the complex of Soviet burials from the Second World War.

The Vilnius City Council decided in early June to dismantle six gray granite statues depicting Soviet soldiers from World War II. The municipality announced that it is not yet known where the monuments will end up after being dismantled: “in a museum or elsewhere, it is not yet known, but what is certain is that they will no longer be in the public space of the capital.”

Embassy of Russia in Lithuania called this decision is “blasphemous and barbaric”: “This heinous act is nothing but the concentration and exposure of the evil of the current Lithuanian political regime.”

On August 23, the dismantling of the monument to Soviet soldiers, the liberators of Latvia and Riga from the Nazi invaders, began in Riga, the Delfi portal wrote earlier. Moscow condemned this decision. According to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, such actions are a manifestation of neo-Nazism. The Kremlin called the demolition a “war on history,” but the Russian authorities have no way to prevent this decision, said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

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