Poroshenko signs ‘decommunization’ bill

KYIV – President Petro Poroshenko has signed into law legislation banning Soviet symbols and Communist-era propaganda in Ukraine. Mr. Poroshenko’s office made the announcement on May 15. Under the legislation, the Communist government that ruled between 1917 and 1991 is condemned as a criminal regime. Its symbols and propaganda are banned – a measure that would require the demolition of monuments to Bolshevik Revolution leader Vladimir Lenin and other Soviet-era icons that remain. The legislation applies the same treatment to the Nazi regime, which occupied and controlled much of Ukraine during World War II. The measures drew strong Russian criticism when they were approved by the Verkhovna Rada last month. They are part of a shift away from Soviet imagery, which Kyiv says the Kremlin is using to influence neighbors and promote self-serving myths about World War II amid the conflict in eastern Ukraine. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by TASS, Interfax and Agence France-Presse)