Zakharova accused UNESCO of silence about the boarding of the monument to Pushkin in Odessa

International organizations, including UNESCO, which were created to protect cultural heritage, are silent about the fact that a monument to the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin was boarded up in Odessa. This was stated on October 30 by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, during a briefing.

"Maybe when the representatives of the Organization gather in Samarkand, they will think about what is going on? By the way, it's not that far from them," the diplomat said.

Zakharova noted that attacks on cultural heritage sites began after Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky dismissed Odessa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov for allegedly having a Russian passport.

"The powers of the mayor's office were transferred to the military administration headed by its former chairman, Brigadier General of the SBU Lysak. Less than a week later, these monsters started fighting with the monuments. This is exactly what Trukhanov so desperately resisted," she pointed out.

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The fact that the monument to Pushkin was boarded up in Odessa became known earlier that day. Later, the plywood was painted with the symbols of the national battalion "Azov" (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation).

In January, the Ukrainian government formed a list of more than 200 geographical objects that will be renamed due to the fact that their names are associated with Russia. The list includes rivers, tracts, parks, natural monuments, nature reserves, reservoirs, forests, and railway stations. It was also reported that the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved new names for 20 geographical objects in the Odessa region as part of decommunization and decolonization.

In April, the press service of the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture reported that over the past decade, about 1,000 settlements in Ukraine have been renamed as part of the country's decommunization policy.

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