Euronews Removed Its Facebook Cover After Complaints From Russia

The Euronews TV channel removed from its Facebook page the cover photo of the Soviet soldier painted in the colors of Ukraine at the Soviet army monument in Sofia.

The photo stirred outrage among the Russian viewers who posted hateful comments and Russia's foreign ministry, which said that the use of the photo of the “desecrated monument” has “crossed all borders”.

The Euronews web editors replaced the photo and explained that by publishing the photo they are not taking sides in Ukraine.“This is just a photo of an event, one of the most controversial and discussed photos in the past few days”, the editors said. “But we see that the publishing of this photo was wrongfully perceived as a declaration and against our wishes has offended many of our viewers. This is why we're taking it off, but we do not accept the accusations that we offended the memory of the war veterans.”

The photo is still visible on Euronews' Facebook page as a "Photo of the day" for February 23.

The Soviet army monument in Sofia is considered by many as a symbol of the Soviet oppression and has been partially painted by various groups three times in the past three years.

The latest occurrence was this past weekend, when in the night of February 22  an unidentified person or persons painted one of the soldiers at the base of the monument in the colors of the Ukrainian flag and wrote “Glory to Ukraine” in Ukrainian. Obscene words in reference to the Russian President Vladimir Putin were also written in graffiti.

On Monday the Russian foreign ministry expressed its outrage with what it defined “an act of vandalism” and demanded that the perpetrators be punished.