Nowhere Man: Ukrainians Swap Out Lenin For Lennon
Imagine all the people, living for today. And ditching their Soviet past.
The 6,000 residents of Kalyny, in western Ukraine, hope to do just that. They have renamed Vladimir Lenin Street after the late Beatle John Lennon.
Hennadiy Moskal, head of the Zakarpattia state administration, signed a decree renaming a total of 10 streets in the oblast, citing the so-called decommunization laws that have been enacted amid an effort to further spurn an era and imagery that Kyiv fears Moscow is using to promote self-serving myths while seizing territory and orchestrating unrest in neighboring Ukraine.
Read more by RFE/RL's Anna Shamanska here.
A little over a year after the Minsk II accord was signed in February 2015, it is all too apparent that the agreement aimed at ending the war in eastern Ukraine is not working. Nevertheless, Western governments, the EU, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe keep reiterating that Minsk needs to be fulfilled.