The nearly 45-metre-high monument has dominated the Bulgarian capital’s landscape for the past 70 years. Still, the new pro-EU coalition government began the process of dismantling it after being motivated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, the leader of the far-right pro-Russian party Vazrazhdane, Kostadin Kostadinov, called on his colleagues to express their opposition to the monument’s demolition by blocking parliamentary work.