The faction of the Ukrainian Communist Party in the Verkhovna Rada will demand the opening of criminal cases against those who participated in the demolition of the monument to Soviet Union founder Vladimir Lenin on Besarabska Square in Kyiv, Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko has said.

"Today a motion signed by our faction deputies will be sent to the Prosecutor General's Office with the demand to bring to justice all those who disgraced Ukraine before the whole world," he said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.

Symonenko said that this monument had been included in UNESCO's World Heritage List.

"Those who talked about European values are trampling on them, because this monument was included in the UNESCO register. It was presented at an international exhibition in New York in 1939," he said.

Symonenko also noted that the territorial community of Kyiv had not made the decision to pull down the monument.

As reported, a group of unidentified people on the evening of Sunday, December 8, pulled down a statue of Lenin from its pedestal in central Kyiv. Law enforcers opened criminal proceedings under Part 1, Article 294 (riots) of the Criminal Code due to the demolition of the monument to Lenin on Besarabska Square in Kyiv.