Wenjie Ivanov, a co-founder of the World War II Memorial in the city of Minsk, where more than 80,000 of the dead were buried.

“What concerns me the most is the damage that is happening on national territory,” Ivanov told AFP, citing the government’s policies.

On Tuesday morning, a grenade exploded in one of the memorial’s main gates, according to reports by the regional government.

“It’s a terrible crime. People don’t have children. This is not only the monument, this is the whole nation,” Ivanov said, adding that it was especially tragic in view of the state of death among residents and the state of the nation’s educational system.

Ivanov said that the World War II Memorial should be preserved as such, despite its official designation as a monument to the suffering of WWII victims.

“It just shouldn’t be used [as a tourist attraction] for political purposes,” he said. He added that he planned to put up an appeal for donations to help pay for the repairs.

State Governor Konstantin Chernyak said in remarks broadcast on the government’s official TV channel, Rossia24, that he was glad that an attack on the world war II monument did not “result in any more casualties.”

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Although the memorial was dedicated in 2014 and is already undergoing extensive renovations as part of the $2.2 billion Euroval building, it is already one of many monuments to the victims of the WWII period in trouble.

Among those in difficulties is the monument to “Fritz von Carstein” (known affectionately as “The Wolf”) which dates back to the 1870s and which was vandalized with swastikas in 2016. The monument, which commemorates his role as a pioneer in the field of motor racing, was returned to the German motor racing federation, the Duesseldorf Fédération Germane, earlier this year.

Last month, an unknown person placed a black flag outside the monument to “Von Wietstschnitzel, a Jewish sportsman who died in the Holocaust.”

Meanwhile, according to local government sources the head of the memorial service, Pavel Kostyuk, is also under pressure to resign over the construction problems. He is set to start a leave of absence soon.

Kostyuk has been ordered to continue at