The demolition of a monument symbolizing the friendship Ukraine and Russia once had began with the decapitation of the figure representing the Russian side of the relationship.

Authorities in Kyiv on Tuesday pulled the head off one side of the nearly 30-foot Soviet-era statue that has stood in the capital city since 1982. The rest of the monument came crashing down shortly afterward. The dismantling of the bronze statue depicting a Ukrainian and a Russian holding up a medal representing the Soviet Union’s Order of Friendship of Peoples comes in response to Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion.