Article published in GEOpolitics on 22nd October, 2026
On April 26, 2022, the Kyiv municipality removed parts of a monument, the People’s Friendship Arch, that had stood in the city center since 1982, when it was unveiled for the 65th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. This monumental ensemble, dedicated to the “friendship between peoples,” featured two bronze workers, one Ukrainian and one Russian, standing united as they brandished the Soviet coat of arms. It also included granite Cossacks depicted after signing the 1654 Pereyaslav Treaty – the first agreement between the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks and the Moscow tsar, under which the former swore allegiance to the latter in exchange for military assistance against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Thanks to its “architectural heritage” status, the monument survived the collapse of the USSR and the 2004 and 2014 revolutions, as well as the passage of four “decommunization laws” in 2015. It was only in 2022, after the Russian army lifted the siege of Kyiv and the Ukrainian army discovered the scale of Moscow’s war crimes in towns such as Bucha, that the monument to the “friendship between peoples” became intolerable. Symbolically, one of the workers’ bronze heads detached during the removal and rolled onto the pavement. It was the Russian’s.
The bronze monument was entirely taken away. Soon after, the destruction of the granite Cossacks started. It was never fully completed, though. Some scattered stones remain somewhat hidden behind a fragile fence to this day. The arch still stands. Since it is visible from the Dnipro banks, it has become, over the years, a symbol of Kyiv. No decision regarding its future has yet been taken as of October 2026. Somehow, the contrasting fate of this once-massive architectural ensemble has become a symbol of Ukraine’s derussification process: a reaction to Russia’s full-scale invasion, it is both radical and indecisive, subjective and incomplete.
