First Stalin Bust Installed in Russian-Occupied Melitopol, Ukraine

On Thursday, members of the Communist Party of Russia unveiled a bust of Soviet leader Josef Stalin in Melitopol, a Ukrainian city under Moscow’s control.

This marks the first statue of Stalin to be erected in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, as noted by the party’s local branch in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Images and videos released by a party official depicted a crowd of adults waving Soviet flags, with children donning socialist scarves and caps during the ceremony.

In one of the recordings, Taras Genov, the head of the Russian Communist Party in Zaporizhzhia, could be heard exclaiming, “For the motherland, for Stalin, hooray!”

He indicated that contributions from Melitopol residents financed the creation and placement of the statue in the city’s Alley of Heroes.

Melitopol, which had a pre-war population of around 150,000, was seized shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.

It is currently the largest city in the Zaporizhzhia region still under Russian control. Zaporizhzhia is one of four Ukrainian regions that Russia claimed to have annexed in the fall of 2022, despite not exerting full control over them.

In recent years, there has been a growing revival of Stalin’s image in Russia, despite the numerous atrocities associated with his regime.

According to estimates from the exiled news organization Mozhem Obyasnit, there are 120 statues of Stalin in Russian cities, with 105 of those being installed during President Vladimir Putin’s 25 years in power.