What Lviv's removal of Soviet monuments showed about regional action
A look back at the regional developments reported in the days around 2 February 2024, from Lviv Oblast to the front-line south and east.
What did the regions of Ukraine look like on 2 February 2024? The reports from the preceding days point in two directions: a regional authority completing a symbolic task, and front-line oblasts absorbing the daily cost of the war.
On 30 January 2024, Lviv Oblast became the first oblast in Ukraine to remove all Soviet Union-era monuments. The step belongs to the wider process of decommunization, in which monuments and memorials have been taken down following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That Lviv was first suggests that the pace of this work varied from one oblast to another.
The same day, Ukrainian forces said they had shot down a Russian Su-34 fighter jet over Luhansk Oblast. The claim was part of the reporting on the eastern campaign.
In the south, a Russian drone strike near Beryslav in Kherson Oblast on 1 February 2024 killed two French aid workers and injured four other people. The strike was reported as part of the southern campaign.
Taken together, these items show that regions faced different circumstances. In Lviv Oblast, authorities could complete a policy on public memory. In Kherson and Luhansk oblasts, the reports concerned strikes and air combat. Aid workers were among those affected near Beryslav, a reminder that civilians and humanitarian staff were exposed to the fighting in the south.
