In Ukraine, monuments to Lenin and other Soviet-era monuments have been made illegal by Ukrainian decommunization laws that came into force on 21 May 2015. This law mandated the monuments to be removed within a six months period that started on 15 May 2015. Since Ukrainian independence in 1991, communist monuments were already being removed and until 2014 new ones were also erected. In the aftermath of the 2013–2014 Euromaidan protests many of them were toppled. On 15 May 2015, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed the bill into law that started a six months period for the removal of the communist monuments. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many of these communist statues, which had been taken down by Ukrainian activists, were re-erected by Russian occupiers in Russian-controlled areas.

Outlawing of communist monuments

Early attempts

On 6 October 2009, addressing participants of the Second Ecumenical Week held in Ukrainian Catholic University, then First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko called on all Ukrainians to pull down monuments to the Communist past. According to her, the Communist regime had been consistently active in destroying the Ukrainian church. "Having destroyed age-long belief in Christ, the Communists proposed their own idols instead; the culture and faith of Ukrainians was deformed and are in need of renovation", according to Kateryna Yushchenko.

Pulling down of monuments

The removal or destruction of Lenin monuments and statues gained particular momentum during the Euromaidan movement in the beginning of 2014. Under the motto "Ленінопад" (Leninopad, translated into English as "Leninfall"), activists pulled down a dozen monuments in the Kyiv region, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, and elsewhere, or damaged them. In other cities and towns, monuments were removed by organised heavy equipment and transported to scrapyards or dumps. By February 25, 2014, an estimate ran of over 90 statues and monuments being pulled down, removed or relocated. Since February 2014 and mid-April 2015, more than 500 statues of Lenin were dismantled in Ukraine, and nearly 1,700 were still standing.

Law that outlawed the monuments

On 9 April 2015 the Ukrainian parliament passed legislation, submitted by the Second Yatsenyuk Government, banning the promotion of symbols of “Communist and National Socialist totalitarian regimes” this means that be mid-2015 all communist monuments in Ukraine have to be removed. One of the main provisions of the bill was the recognition of the Soviet Union was "criminal" and one that it "pursued a state terror policy". On 15 May 2015 President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed the bill into law; starting a six months period for the removal of the communist monuments. In 1991 Ukraine had 5,500 Lenin monuments. By December 2015, 1,300 Lenin monuments were still standing. On 16 January 2017 the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance announced that 1,320 Lenin monuments were dismantled during decommunization.