Latvia Topples Soviet-Era World War II Monument in Riga

A World War II memorial in the Latvian capital was toppled on Thursday, August 25, the latest Soviet-era monument to be dismantled in Eastern Europe since the start of the war in Ukraine.

“The world has changed this year. Now Riga has also changed,” Riga Mayor Edvards Smiltens wrote in a Facebook post. “The ultimate symbol of imperialism, the supremacy of another power and the oppression of our nation is lost.”

Video shot from the Latvian national library shows the obelisk, called the Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders, collapsing.

Smiltens said the city council decided in May to bring down the monument. Credit: Kristians Luhaers, National Library of Latvia via Storyful

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