In war against its Soviet past, Ukraine refaces towering Kyiv monument

A Kyiv monument traded a 42-year-old Soviet coat of arms for a modern trident Sunday, a swap that exemplifies the war-torn country’s fight against the 21st-century Russian army and the vestiges of Ukraine’s Soviet past.

The Motherland Monument, a 335-foot statue of a woman holding a sword and shield, has towered over Kyiv since 1981 as a symbol of the U.S.S.R.’s triumphs during World War II. Workers dismantled the part of the shield featuring the Soviet hammer-and-sickle and wheat beginning in late July; on Sunday they replaced it with the Ukrainian emblem.