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Mosaic portraits of the former Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin were removed from a water tower in Novhorod-Siverskyi, Chernihiv region, on Thursday, April 7, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, officials said.

According to Ukraine’s public broadcaster, Suspilne, Deputy Chief of the Novhorod-Siverskyi District Military Administration Volodymyr Shkarpitko said the decision to remove the portraits was taken in response to comments about the “decommunization” of Ukraine made by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Putin said he would show us decommunization. So tomorrow we will put everything in its original form,” Shkarpitko said on Wednesday, according to reports. “The result of Russia’s special operation will be symbolic: they showed us decommunization, and we demolished the last portraits,” he was quoted as saying.

In a speech delivered three days before the invasion, Putin had ridiculed “decommunization” in Ukraine, decried its campaign of removing monuments to Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, whom he claimed created the state of Ukraine, and threatened to take back land he felt was “robbed” from Russia during the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

“You want decommunization? Well, that suits us just fine. But it is not necessary, as they say, to stop halfway. We are ready to show you what real decommunization means for Ukraine,” Putin warned.

This footage from Suspilne shows workers using a ladder truck to reach the portraits and a chisel to pry them from the tower’s exterior wall.

The head of Chernihiv Regional State Administration, Vyacheslav Chaus, welcomed the removal, announcing on Telegram that “Novgorod-Siversky is finally free of communist symbols!” Credit: Suspilne via Storyful