The bust is flanked by two others - legendary Soviet commanders Georgy Zhukov and Alexander Vasilyevsky - beside the Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad - Volgograd's name from 1925 to 1961, the local news outlet V1.RU reported on Tuesday.
The industrial city of Tsaritsyn on the River Volga in southern Russia was renamed in honour of Stalin in 1925, but became Volgograd in 1961, eight years after his death, following the de-stalinization process led by Khrushchev.
February 2nd marked the 80th anniversary since the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, with the complete victory of the forces of the Red Army and the crushing of the Nazi armies, something that constituted the beginning of the radical change of tide in the war in favor of the USSR and more generally laid the foundations for the Anti-fascist Victory of the Peoples.
It must be noted that since the beginning of the invasion in Ukraine a year ago, the history and the symbols of the Soviet Union and the Red army had been subject to systematic exploitation by the anti-communist Russian government, in an attempt to manipulate the pro-Soviet feelings of a large part of the population.