KIEV, Ukraine, April 10 (UPI) -- Ukraine's Parliament banned all Soviet-era symbolism in the country, a show of defiance against Russia.
The bill, which passed Thursday by 254-0, equates Nazi iconography with that of the Soviet Union, of which Ukraine was a part from the end of World War II to its 1991 independence. Ukraine was also overrun by the Nazis during the war. It outlaws "public rejection of the criminal nature" of Ukraine's Soviet and Nazi past, although thousands of Soviet street names, statues and public art remain across the country and it remains unclear how the new law will deal with those elements of the Soviet legacy.