Lenin statue toppled!

Mailonline.com :
A gigantic statue of Lenin has been torn down by Ukrainian nationalists who cheered and chanted as they cut off the Communist monument’s metal nose.
Flares and anti-Russian slogans erupted from a crowd of thousands last night as the statue came crashing to the ground in Kharkiv’s Freedom Square.
The protesters, many of them masked, carved the words ‘Glory to Ukraine’ on the plinth of the monument, which was destroyed with the permission of the regional government.
Even Ukraine’s interior minister joined celebrations at the vanquishing of what he called the ‘bloody Communist idol’.
At around 28ft tall, it was said to be the largest Lenin statue in Ukraine and had stood in Kharkiv’s central square since 1964.
It came crashing down in a cloud of dust last night after protesters spent several hours taking heavy cutting equipment to the base of the metal monument.
With hundreds of voices chanting slogans and the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag draped from the plinth, they took hammers to the statue’s face and removed its nose before carrying it through the crowd.
Kharkiv is just 25 miles from Ukraine’s border with Russia, and like the neighbouring cities of Luhansk and Donetsk it was overrun by gangs of pro-Russian separatists in April.
Unlike its neighbours, however, Kharkiv crushed the main uprising just two days later when Ukrainian forces stormed a security services building which the pro-Russians had seized.
Around 70 separatists, some of whom were also accused of storming a TV station, were arrested.
Since then there have been counter-protests by Ukrainian nationalists who insist on their city remaining under the control of the government in Kiev.
They were demonstrating in the square last night when an order allowing the statue to be demolished was signed by Kharkiv’s regional governor Ihor Baluta.
Ukraine’s interior minister Arsen Avakov, whose government has accused Russia of encouraging and supporting the rebels, celebrated the move.
He insisted officials and the national guard were ready to combat ‘provocateurs’ who may seek to ‘take advantage of the situation.’
But he added on Facebook: ‘Lenin? Let him fall, only if people are not injured. Only if the bloody Communist idol’s leaving does not add to the victims. ‘Police gave the command to ensure the safety of people only, not the idol.’
The statue had already been the focus of fierce arguments between separatists and nationalists, who said it was an outdated reference to Ukraine’s time under the control of the Soviet Union. It has become one of more than 100 monuments to Lenin which have been toppled in the last year, according to the Kyiv Post.