The video of their dismantling was later posted on the Web. The vandals torn down the monuments with the tacit approval of local police.
Vandalizing Soviet-era statues and memorials has become routine practice in Ukraine since the outbreak of the political crisis late last year.
On December 1, 2013, Ukrainian nationalists tore down a statue of Vladimir Lenin in central Kiev.
A total of more than 500 statues of the founder of the Soviet state have been dismantled in Ukraine since February 2014, and nearly 1,700 are still standing.
