Four detained for damaging Sofia's Soviet army monument

Four persons have been detained for throwing objects at and causing damage to Sofia's Soviet Army Monument, the Interior Ministry told BTA on Friday. Having been alerted around 11:45 p.m. on Thursday, police found on site a woman with a stolen handbag who had been sprayed and damages to the monument.

The detained are Levski Sofia football fans aged 26, 33, and 29, one of them with a criminal record. Pretrial proceedings in connection with theft and hooliganism have been launched. All facts and circumstances in the case are being established, the Interior Ministry said.

The attackers broke with a hammer several tiles of the monument's dedication panel which reads "To the Soviet Army Liberator from the Grateful Bulgarian People" three months after Socialist Party activists had it restored after a previous vandalization.

In a position released on Friday, the Sofia City Regional Administration strongly condemned the act of vandalism in which elements of the Soviet Army Monument were destroyed and public order was disrupted in the area on Thursday evening. "We expect the perpetrators to incur the appropriate criminal and property liability. We state that the planned relocation of the sculptural elements and bas-reliefs can be carried out only in a legal manner under the accelerated procedure undertaken," the Regional Administration said.

Approached for comment, Sofia Mayor Yordanka Fandakova told journalists that certain politicians are using the relocation of the monument for PR purposes ahead of the October 29 local elections. "The organizers of the protests against the relocation are entirely responsible for the people standing in front of the monument during the night. Under the law, protests must be coordinated," she added. "We have coordinated a protest without the placing of tents, so the tents in front of the monument are illegal," she added.

Fandakova referred to a tent camp erected by the non-parliamentary The Left! coalition on August 9 to protect the monument from relocation. Four tents and a marquee were pitched in front of the controversial landmark, which coalition leader Maya Manolova said would be guarded. Supporters of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and Vazrazhdane joined the campers later on.

On August 2, a Council of Ministers decision changed the status of the memorial complex from public state property to private state property, which is widely seen as a first step towards going ahead with plans to remove the Stalin-era monument from its present location at the very heart of Sofia and keep only the elements of artistic value.

The BSP strongly condemns and opposes any act of vandalism against monuments, violence against peaceful protesters and attempts to disunite society, Tasko Ermenkov of the BSP leadership and the party's Deputy Chair Irena Anastasova told journalists in front of the Soviet Army Monument in Sofia on Friday in connection with what they consider a desecration of the memorial on Thursday evening.

"Whoever fights against this monument, which is dedicated to the victors over Hitler's fascism, place themselves on the side of the vanquished," Ermenkov said.

He described the incident on Thursday evening as a "dangerous precedent" reminiscent of the start of actions in 2014 that led to a "national tragedy" of Ukraine. "Let us not tolerate such disunity based on hatred, attempts to instill this hatred, to entail similar consequences in Bulgaria," Ermenkov insisted argued.

In his opinion, the power-holding "Euro-Atlanticists" are pushing Bulgaria towards a resurgence of fascism and negation of its history and dignity."

In a related development, Sofia City Regional Governor Vyara Todeva said in a BTA interview that the Regional Administration prepared a Safety and Health Plan and submitted it to Sofia Municipality on Thursday. 

The plan includes the building of a fence around the monument and of a scaffolding for examining the compromised elements and the sculptures themselves whose condition has not been checked for 70 years.

"Considering the situation that arose last night, we hope that these steps will be taken with the least possible delay," Todeva pointed out.

She drew a distinction between the Safety and Health Plan and a relocation plan, which is "a long way to go". The Regional Governor explained that, first, the construction file will have to be restored according to a procedure under the Spatial Development Act. Next, a specific location will have to be examined at the Socialist Art Museum that can accommodate the sculptures, and then a relocation plan will be assigned.

Asked whether the Regional Administration can commit to a timeframe for the relocation of the monument, Todeva said that all procedures are being followed and the relocation must happen strictly within the law, and the sculptures and bas-reliefs must be conserved and, if necessary, restored. 
 
Regarding the debate over the fate of the monument, the Regional Governor commented that, considering the forthcoming local elections, a politicization of the matter is inescapable.

"The Chairman of the State Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Bastrykin has instructed the Committee's central office, in cooperation with the Russian Foreign Ministry, to investigate the desecration of the monument in honour of the Soviet liberator soldiers in Sofia," the Investigative Committee said on its website on Friday. "As part of the investigation, measures will be taken to identify the persons involved in committing this crime. Their actions will be given a criminal legal assessment," the press release says, referring to the attack by a group of soccer fans of the tent camp of the monument's defenders and the damage to a granite slab at its base as "an act of vandalism".