"The man, who was slightly drunk, attempted to pull off the head of Lenin's statue," the spokesman said. "He brought a ladder from a nearby construction site and tried to destroy the monument," he said, adding that the attacker had only managed to tear off Lenin's right arm.
When asked about the reasons for his actions, the man said he was doing this on "political grounds," adding that the presence of monuments to the Soviet leader throughout the country was "unacceptable."
A large amount of Lenin statues were torn down in Russia following the collapse of the U.S.S.R., but many remain, with each large town or city usually boasting at least one.
The embalmed body of the Russian communist leader has been on public display in a glass case in a mausoleum on Red Square since his death in 1924. His continuing presence in the heart of Moscow has been an ongoing source of controversy since the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
