On the night of May 1, a memorial plaque dedicated to Dzhokhar Dudayev, the first president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, was stolen in Lviv. Radio Liberty's Ukrainian Service reported this, citing Yevhen Boyko, head of the Lviv City Council executive committee.
Boyko reported: "An act of vandalism was recorded tonight at 1:05 a.m. The police have been notified. We will restore the plaque."
The plaque was placed on April 21, the anniversary of Dudayev's assassination, on a building located at the beginning of a street named after him in central Lviv. Representatives of the Chechen diaspora attended the ceremony, including Akhmed Zakayev, Prime Minister of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in exile, as well as Chechen volunteers fighting for Ukraine and local officials.
Ichkerian leader Dzhokhar Dudayev died on April 21, 1996, near the village of Gekhi-Chu in the Urus-Martan district of Chechnya. His location was discovered during a satellite phone conversation, after which a Russian military aircraft launched a missile strike.
Previously, memorial plaques in memory of Dzhokhar Dudayev were erected in Ivano-Frankivsk and Poltava, and Kyiv authorities named a street after him. In October 2022, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly to recognize the independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.
