Statue of old lady with Soviet flag removed in Belgorod shortly after installation

A statue of an old lady holding a Soviet flag was installed in Belgorod a few days ago. It will, however, be moved to a different place, states Anton Ivanov, the city mayor.

“The people were trying to climb the statue, so we removed it. It will now be installed in a different location,” he wrote, adding that he was extremely confused.

A video of an old lady holding a Soviet flag went viral on social media in early April. It was presumably shot in the Kharkiv region. In the video, an old lady holding a Soviet flag approaches a group of Ukrainian soldiers, possibly assuming that those were Russian troops. Then, a Ukrainian soldier hands her a bag of groceries, takes the flag, throws it to the ground and starts to trample it down. The lady then hands the groceries back to him and asks if she can keep the flag.

After that, numerous sculptures of this old lady were installed throughout Russia, and her images were painted on buildings.

Tushinsky court in Moscow fined a man named Roman Sakharov for destroying a cardboard statue of the old lady 50,000 rubles (€650) on 25 April. Sakharov apologised on camera twice and acknowledged his offence.