The Kiev authorities began dismantling a Soviet-era monument marking the connection between Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday, more than two years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It will take several days to fully tear down the red granite monument, which consists of some 20 elements, the city administration said. It is a group of statues showing Ukrainian Cossacks surrounding hetman, or “leader,” Bohdan Khmelnytskyi and the Moscow ambassador. It sits below a steel rainbow-shaped installation near the bank of the Dnipro River. The statues, said to weigh some 6,000 to 7,00…