"More than 800 monuments to Lenin have been dismantled in Ukraine as of now," he told TV Channel 5 on Tuesday, Ukrainian online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda wrote.

He also said that statements that objects with artistic value were destroyed on the pretext of de-communization were not true. At the same time, he claims that the spontaneous process of de-communization, which had started before Ukraine adopted the law on de-communization, is still under way.

"The de-communization law gives us an opportunity to disassemble everything that has some artistic value and store it in museums, otherwise it will become part of the spontaneous de-communization, which is still under way in Ukraine," he said.

"We can showcase the Soviet past in special museums, theme parks, but we cannot let the Soviet past remain part of our life, as it distorts us," he added.

According to rough estimates, there are about 1,400 monuments to Lenin left in Ukraine.