Odessa’s monument to Catherine the Great in Empress Square was seen vandalised, in footage filmed in Wednesday.
The statue of the last Empress of Russia, who founded the city in 1794, is shown daubed in red liquid, with a red cap placed on her head and a noose over her hand. Obscenities are graffitied on the plinth, along with the phrase: “Tear it down, Gena won’t help!”
Earlier, Odessa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov spoke out against any attempt to remove the monument, despite a recent petition following the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“I am against treating one’s history selectively. Blurring and forgetting one’s past will lead to fatal mistakes in the future,” he said.
At the time of publication, no arrests had been reported.
