Ukrainian historian: Ukraine was occupied during Soviet period
In a broadcast of Channel 5, Director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance Volodymyr Viatrovych called the period during which Ukraine was part of the USSR “the Bolshevik occupation”.
“It was the Soviet occupation, the establishing of first a Bolshevik, then a communist occupation regime,” he said. Viatrovych also referred to a need for “legislative acts which would clearly document the current Ukraine’s succession of the Ukrainian People’s Republic”.
“One of these elements which is being developed at the Institute of National Remembrance is the introduction of changes into the law on Ukrainian state awards. The awards of the Ukrainian People’s Republic must be placed on the list of state awards,” he added.
In August 2017, Viatrovych said that as part of the decommunization campaign in Ukraine, nearly all of the memorials of Vladimir Lenin have been disposed of. More than 1,300 monuments have been taken down, some of which the Ukrainian authorities decided to transfer to museums.
The head of the Institute of National Remembrance observed that 32 cities, 955 settlements and 52,000 streets which previously bore the names of party and state figures from Soviet times have been renamed as part of the decommunization effort in Ukraine.