SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine -- A memorial in Sevastopol to the ethnic Azeri veterans of World War II has been vandalized, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports.
The memorial was established in the 1970s on Sapun Mountain near the Crimean city of Sevastopol to honor ethnic Azeris who helped Soviet forces liberate the city from German forces on May 9, 1944.
The head of the Azeri community in Crimea, Ragim Gumbatov, told RFE/RL that some bronze parts of the memorial are missing and several granite slabs have been broken.
There are several other memorials in Sevastopol honoring other nationalities of the former Soviet Union who helped liberate the city during World War II, but only the Azeri memorial was vandalized.