In August, the intensity of the bombardment of Sloviansk (Donetsk region) increased sharply. As a result, on August 21, 2026, Sloviansk was officially designated as a territory of active hostilities. The Russians are attacking residential buildings and shops and attempting to destroy the Sloviansk Thermal Power Plant and the city’s entire civilian infrastructure. Yet, among other targets, on August 28, 2026, they struck, for some reason, a monument commemorating the liberation of Sloviansk from the Nazi occupiers. Why are the Russians trying to destroy the monument to the Soviet soldiers? Prof. Nikolai Karpitsky attempts to answer this question from the scene.
The Russians Deliberately Attacked the Monument to the Soviet Soldiers
On August 28, toward evening, when I returned from a walk through the city center, the Russians began striking the city again – right in the area where I had just been walking. Vadym Liakh, head of the Sloviansk City Military Administration, wrote on his Facebook page: “Today, August 28, Russia destroyed the monument to the soldiers of the Second World War who liberated Sloviansk from the Nazis back in the distant 1940s. The monument was one of the city’s landmarks. Celebrations marking City Day were always held nearby in early September. Russia is destroying everything it can reach. There are no sacred places. Under attack are children, churches, monuments, cultural heritage, and residential buildings. Take care of yourselves. We are holding on. We are together!”
Why did the Russians strike the monument? After all, Putin has practically transformed the cult of victory over Nazi Germany into a new civil religion, which he uses to legitimize his own rule. An attack on a monument to the soldiers who liberated the city undermines this cult and evokes associations between Putin’s regime and Hitler’s.
In the comments beneath my YouTube video, in which I mention the attack, I asked a Russian viewer what he thought about it. “I can assume that this was done by Nazis belonging to the NATO PMC, which you call the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” – he replied. His answer is so absurd that I will not attempt to discuss it. However, I think this is exactly how tens of millions of Russians would answer us – only without the mitigating phrase “I can assume.” But perhaps the monument was hit accidentally?
Two days later after the attack, on August 30, I went to the scene of the incident. The monument stands in the very center of Shovkovychniy Park. There are very few people here; dense vegetation surrounds it on all sides, and there is not a single object within more than a hundred meters that could reasonably be considered a target for an attack. I walked around the monument. It had not been destroyed, but it had been damaged in two places: there was an impact on the flag in the upper section and another one below, at the point where the soldier’s left boot meets the pedestal. Apparently, there were two drones. Two strikes in such an empty location rule out the possibility of an accidental hit.
Perhaps the drone operators did not know that the monument was specifically dedicated to the soldiers who liberated the city from Hitler’s occupiers? Judging by the pattern of damage, the drones approached from the northwest, and from that direction it is indeed possible not to recognize the Soviet soldier depicted on the monument. But if so, this means that the Russians simply do not care what they bomb, because all it takes is a glance at the Google map to find out whom the monument commemorates.
Version One. The Russians simply do not care what they bomb
Perhaps none of the drone operators even bothered to find out what kind of monument it was because they simply do not care what exactly they destroy. Indeed, the Russians strike Sloviansk indiscriminately and without any apparent purpose. For example, just one minute before I left my home to see the damage to the monument with my own eyes, I heard two powerful explosions. When I went outside, I saw smoke rising from the direction of Bylbasivka, a settlement adjoining Sloviansk to the west. A little later, Vadym Liakh wrote on his Facebook page: “On Sunday, August 30, at around 11:00 a.m., the enemy carried out an airstrike using two FAB-250 bombs against the settlement of Bylbasivka. Two private houses were destroyed. About two dozen more houses were damaged. Two people were wounded. Two others were killed. One of those killed was a 13-year-old child.”
What possible purpose could there be in bombing rural houses, especially since the Russian offensive is being conducted from the opposite direction? Obviously, everything is being bombed indiscriminately simply because it is located on Ukrainian territory. Perhaps this is why the monument was hit as well. But perhaps the Russians did have a more substantial reason?
Also read on PostPravda.Info: Winter in Sloviansk: The Goal Is to Survive Together with Ukraine. From the series “War in Human Life”
Version Two. The reason for the attack on the monument is ideological
The veterans of the Second World War are now around one hundred years old, and very few of them remain. In the Russian collective consciousness, the memory of that war is being displaced by an ideological narrative in which the Soviet Union supposedly fought the war single-handedly and defeated Nazi Germany, while other countries later tried to take credit for this victory. The Second World War either disappears from the collective consciousness altogether or is perceived as something resembling Germany’s preparatory maneuvers before its attack on the Soviet Union. Russia is presented as the rightful heir to that victory and therefore as having the right to threaten other countries with repeating it – but this time against them. The historical memory of the Second World War, expressed in the slogan “Never again!”, has been transformed in the Russian consciousness into a cult of so-called pobedobesie (literally ‘victory madness’ or ‘victory frenzy’), under the slogan “We can do it again!”
Putin can acknowledge Ukraine’s participation in the victory over Nazi Germany – which, within this ideological narrative, is attributed exclusively to Russia – only if Ukraine recognizes itself as part of Russia. However, the Ukrainian people’s struggle against the Russian invaders calls the entire Putinist cult of victory into question. That is why Putin seeks to establish Russia’s exclusive succession to that victory, excluding Ukraine from the ranks of its heirs. This interpretation implies that an independent Ukraine has no right to monuments dedicated to the struggle against the Nazi occupiers. And if such monuments do exist, then, as instruments of propaganda that undermine Russia’s monopoly over the legacy of victory, they become legitimate military targets.
I admit that this version sounds utterly irrational even to me. But then again, the attack on a monument to soldiers who liberated the city is equally irrational. In any case, I cannot give preference to either version, but I have no other explanations.
Also read on PostPravda.Info: Life Under Shelling. Donbas 2014–2025. An Eyewitness’s Notes
