Photo: shugozhor73 / Telegram
An image of a soldier has been removed from a brand new war memorial in a village in Russia’s Volga region village after its strong resemblance to a US soldier was noticed, photographs on local news Telegram channel Ulnovosti.ru have shown.
The monument was unveiled on 22 October in the Russian village of Silikatny, in the Ulyanovsk region, at a ceremony attended by local politicians. The monument, in the form of a tombstone, had been partly financed by donations from the mothers and wives of soldiers killed in the war in Ukraine, Ulnovosti.ru wrote.
However, a local Telegram channel noticed that the soldier’s uniform and weaponry looked more American than Russian, and revealed that experts had eventually confirmed that the photo featured a US army soldier.
Local pro-war activist Danil Ibetov, who was present at the unveiling of the monument, attempted to save face in the comments section to the post, saying that the monument had always been meant to depict a Russian soldier with a trophy weapon — a US-made M-16 rifle. “We liked the rifles, and I chose them personally for the artist who created this wonderful monument,” Ibetov said.
Despite Ibetov’s claims, the authorities wasted no time removing the image, and the half of the monument in which the soldier was depicted had been removed, according to photos published on Tuesday.
In a similar gaffe, a Russian army recruitment poster used in the southwestern Russian city of Kursk in September depicted a soldier in Ukrainian uniform with a child in his arms. Kursk Mayor Igor Kutsak wrote subsequently that he had reprimanded those responsible “for blatant negligence”.
