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Ukraine to remove 10 Soviet-era monuments from Kiev streets

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KIEV, November 27 (RIA Novosti) - Authorities in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev have decided to take down ten Soviet-era monuments, including eight statues of Vladimir Lenin, a municipal official said on Thursday.

However, Serhiy Rudik said that a monument to Lenin on Kiev's main street, Kreshchatik, would not be taken down as it had national significance and the decision to remove it could only be made by the government.

He also said that the removal of the monuments would be carried out within the framework of President Viktor Yushchenko's orders concerning the issue of the Stalin-era famine which devastated Ukraine in 1932-1933.

However, Rudik added that the monuments would not be destroyed but would be, "possibly put together somewhere in the same place where they can be visited."

The famine, known as the Holodomor in Ukraine, was caused by forced collectivization. Estimates as to the amount of victims in Ukraine vary greatly, with some 2 million being the lower end of the scale.

Russia says the famine cannot be considered an act that targeted Ukrainians, as millions of people from different ethnic groups lost their lives at that time in vast territories in the North Caucasus, the Volga region, central Russia, Kazakhstan, west Siberia, and the south Urals.

Speaking at a ceremony to unveil a memorial in a village in western Ukraine, one of the areas hardest hit by the early 1930s famine, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said last week that "Ukraine does not blame any nation or state for the great famine." He said "the totalitarian Communist regime" was to blame for the Holodomor.

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