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National flag on the building of the city of Vinnitsa, Ukraine. Archival photoMOSCOW, Apr 28 The executive committee of the city council of Ukrainian Vinnytsia approved the decision to dismantle the monument to the writer Maxim Gorky. In a statement, the Vinnytsia authorities described the classic of Russian and Soviet literature as «a servant of the Stalinist regime.» It is alleged that the decision to demolish the monument was made in response to a petition from the townspeople. The monument to Gorky in the Central Park of Vinnitsa was erected in 1968. The park itself also bore the name of the writer and was renamed in 2020. Earlier, the mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, said that it was planned to dismantle about 60 monuments related to Russia and the Soviet Union in the Ukrainian capital. The process of decommunization in Ukraine was legalized by a whole package of laws that entered into force on May 21, 2015. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that the Ukrainian authorities had been pursuing a policy of aggressive de-Russification and forced assimilation for many years. He noted that Russia wants to see Ukraine as friendly, without a ban on the Russian language and Russian culture.