• On August 25, workers took down the 80-meter obelisk, to the delight of witnesses who saw it fall into a pond in the heart of Riga.
• The monument was built in 1985 to honor the Soviet triumph over Nazi Germany, which controlled the Baltic nations during World War II.
• The Soviet rule of Latvia lasted for decades, ending in 1991 when the country proclaimed independence.

On August 25, workers took down the 80-meter obelisk, to the delight of witnesses who saw it fall into a pond in the heart of Riga. The monument was built in 1985 to honor the Soviet triumph over Nazi Germany, which controlled the Baltic nations during World War II. The Soviet rule of Latvia lasted for decades, ending in 1991 when the country proclaimed independence. However, for many Latvians, this monument served as an unwelcome reminder of those years.

About three months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent off alarm bells across Central and Eastern Europe, where memories of the Soviet-imposed communist regimes are still fresh in people’s minds, the Latvian parliament decided to allow the removal of the Victory Park monument in May. About a quarter of Latvia’s population is of Russian ancestry. Moscow did not immediately respond to news of the monument’s destruction.

Russia’s top leaders have always responded furiously to any talk of tearing down the monument or others like it. When Estonia took down a comparable monument commemorating World War II from the heart of Tallinn in 2007, the city was shaken by violent protests and the nation suffered a catastrophic cyberattack that was eventually placed on Russian hackers. The 24th Soviet war monument to be torn down in Poland since March started demolition the day before in the southern Polish town of Brzeg

Also Read

Russia has stopped gas supplies to Latvia

Despite without providing any more information, the Russian state-owned energy corporation Gazprom...