Ukraine's cabinet backs monument to Hetman Mazepa in central Kyiv on site of dismantled Lenin statue

Why it matters

The decision replaces a Soviet-era monument on one of Kyiv's most prominent central boulevards with a monument to a Ukrainian historical figure, advancing the country's decommunization drive on a high-visibility site. Because the initiative comes from the President and is backed by a decree, it carries top-level state weight and supersedes an earlier Kyiv municipal plan to install a fountain at the same location, pitting the presidential vision against the mayor's office over the future of the space.

What happened

Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers endorsed a Ministry of Culture proposal to erect a monument to Hetman of Ukraine Ivan Mazepa on Taras Shevchenko Boulevard in Kyiv, on the site of the dismantled Lenin monument. The initiative belongs to President Volodymyr Zelensky, who first voiced it on 28 June during events at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra marking the 30th anniversary of the Constitution of Ukraine. Its implementation is provided for by Presidential Decree No. 781 of 21 August, "On commemorating the memory of Ukrainian Hetman Ivan Mazepa."

An open competition will be held to select the best sketch design for the future monument. The competition is being organized by the Ministry of Culture together with the State Agency for Arts and Art Education and the Kyiv City State Administration. The Ministry of Culture will act as the customer for the design and production of the monument. Installation of the monument and improvement of the adjacent territory will be financed from the Kyiv city budget, with funds from other sources not prohibited by law also permitted. The final cost will be determined after the competition and approval of the design and estimate documentation.

How Ukrainian sources describe it

All the supplied sources are Ukrainian outlets, and they frame the decision uniformly as a state act of honoring a key figure in Ukrainian history and a state-builder. Coverage centers government and presidential actors — President Zelensky, Minister of Culture Tetiana Berezhna, and the Cabinet of Ministers — and walks through the bureaucratic mechanism: a presidential decree, a ministry-led open competition, and financing from the Kyiv city budget. The articles also surface the earlier Kyiv city plan to install a fountain at the same site as a competing vision, reflecting a domestic political tension between the presidency and the Kyiv mayor's office over the use of this central public space.

Where reporting differs

The reporting surfaces a clash over the future of the site rather than a factual disagreement: Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko and the Kyiv City State Administration had favored a fountain at the location of the dismantled Lenin monument, with Klitschko calling a fountain "the most neutral solution," while the presidential initiative, now backed by the Cabinet, favors a monument to Mazepa instead.

Background

The Lenin monument at the corner of Taras Shevchenko Boulevard and Khreshchatyk Street was toppled by Euromaidan participants in December 2013. Plans to install a monument to Mazepa in Kyiv existed as early as 2008 under President Viktor Yushchenko, but it was never erected. In April 2026 the Kyiv City State Administration announced plans to arrange a fountain at the site; that plan was criticized by head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory Oleksandr Alfyorov, who called it "dangerous," while Mayor Vitali Klitschko said he wanted a fountain there, calling it "the most neutral solution." In Ukraine, a full monument to Mazepa exists only in Poltava; busts exist in several other localities, including Chernihiv. The Russian Orthodox Church declared an anathema on Mazepa in 1708 on the orders of Tsar Peter I after Mazepa sided with Swedish King Charles XII in the Great Northern War, and in Russia he is called a "traitor."