The restored Prince Igor monument near the settlement of Stanitsa Luganskaya has been unveiled in a ceremony.   The restoration works and the transformation of the monument into memorial complex were completed by the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO) at the instruction of President Vladimir Putin.   The opening ceremony was attended by first deputy chief of staff of the presidential administration Sergey Kiriyenko, RVIO chairman, presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky and Lugansk People’s Republic Acting Head Leonid Pasechnik.   “I congratulate everybody on this festive event, the unveiling of the restored Prince Igor monument,” Kiriyenko said. ”It is important that monuments and peaceful life are restored in the LPR; we are restoring what was deliberately destroyed during the eight-year war when they were trying to make people of the Lugansk region forget that this land had been a historical part of Russia.”   Medinsky said that RVIO specialists had participated in the restoration of this memorial while feeling “great veneration and respect” for this land. They took the most careful approach to the reconstruction process preserving everything that could be preserved.   The restoration and expansion of the memorial took into account all historical events including the newest history of the Lugansk region. A stele displaying information on all key historical events in the Lugansk steppes was installed next to the monument.   “The principality of Chernigov and Novgorod Severskoye was very large. The Tale of Igor’s Campaign authors recounted the pride with which Prince Igor was gathering under his banners militia and men-at-arms from across his lands. He was proud of those who came from Bryansk, the future Gomel, Pereslavl and the Oka which flowed next to the border with the future Moscow. They all gathered under the prince’s banners; they all were Russian people, it was Russian land, and Russian people have gathered up for defense under the banners here in the Lugansk region, in the heart of Donbass and Lugansk land. These steles briefly relate the history of this land, the history of Lugansk,” the RVIO chairman said.   Pasechnik noted that the monument had been preserved thanks to the will of the Russian leadership.   “I’d like to express deep gratitude to our President Vladimir Putin, the RVIO leadership and all members for caring for our history, preserving our history and the work they have done, for restoring the benchmark place of the Lugansk region and giving it a second life,” he said at the opening ceremony.   RVIO Deputy Chairman Nikolay Ovsiyenko said that the monument and its premises were a zone of fighting.   “There were 300 holes in the monument caused by bullets and mortar and artillery rounds. “Our key task was to weld them over to hide the damage. If you look carefully, you’ll see that part of the first rider (on the monument) had been smashed up from arm to foot, that part had been missing.”   In August, Ovsiyenko went to Donbass to visit the Prince Igor monument which had been damaged in Ukrainian artillery fire.   The Prince Igor monument was installed on a ten-meter man-made hill in the Server sky Donets river valley. The legend has is that Prince Igor’s campaign against the Cumans started from this place. It is described in detail in the Tale of Igor’s Campaign chronicle. An alternative version says that Igor’s troops passed this territory as they crossed the river Seversky Donets . The memorial took more than 70 percent damage in shelling by Ukrainian forces in the period from 2014 to 2022. Copper coating was punctured by shell fragments and the concrete foundation and load bearing framework were also seriously damaged. Specialists found unexploded ordnance and booby traps during mine-clearing in the monument area.   The Ukrainian government launched the so-called anti-terrorist operation against Donbass in April 2014.  The peace talks that began soon thereafter failed to reach tangible results due to Kiev’s position to settle the conflict by force.   The Lugansk People’s Republic became a part of Russia on September 30, 2022 following the unification referendum.*i*v