Officials in Sakha Erect Memorial to Two Soldiers who Died in Ukraine in Place of One Devoted to Poles and Lithuanians Deported There in 19th Century

Paul Goble

              Staunton, Sept. 9 – Officials in the Sakha capital of Yakutsk have erected a monument to two Russian soldiers who died fighting in Putin’s war in Ukraine in place of one that had been there since the 1990s memorializing Poles and Lithuanians who had been deported there in the 19^th century.

              This is the latest Russian government action to erase any memories of tsarist and Soviet deportations of whole nationalities and to use the war in Ukraine as the occasion and means to do that (echofm.online/news/v-yakutske-na-meste-memoriala-ssylnym-polyakam-i-litovczam-otkryli-pamyatnik-uchastnikam-vtorzheniya-v-ukrainu).

              In the last six months alone, Russain officials have organized an exhibit on “Ten Centuries of Polish Russophobia” at Katyn, the site of the mass shooting of Polish prisoners of war, dismantled a monument to Poles and Lithuanians in Irkutsk, and denied those who sough to erect monuments to Latvians and Lithuanians repressed by Stalin.