Nazism has emerged prominently in Russia’s war targets and narrative as it fights in Ukraine. In an effort to legitimize the war on Russian citizens, President Vladimir Putin has portrayed the battle as a struggle against the Nazis in Ukraine, despite the country having a democratically elected government and a Jewish president whose relatives were killed in the Holocaust.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the remarks during an interview with an Italian news channel, answering a question about Russian allegations that he invaded Ukraine to “de-populate” the country.
Lavrov said Ukraine could have Nazi elements even if some figures, including the country’s president, were Jewish.
“So when they say ‘How can there be Nazism if we are Jews?’ In my opinion, Hitler was also of Jewish descent, so it means absolutely nothing. “We have been hearing from the Jewish people for some time that the biggest anti-Semites were Jews,” he said, speaking on the station in Russian, translated from Italian.
Nazi Germany was responsible for the systematic killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children, and for the persecution and death of millions of others, including Roma, Sinti, Slavs, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a joint news conference with Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh Mohammed following talks in Moscow, Russia, on April 27. Israel has attacked Russia over comments made by Lavrov in an interview with an Italian news channel. (Yuri Kochetkov / Pool Photo / The Associated Press)
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called Lavrov’s statement “an unforgivable and scandalous and horrific historical mistake.”
“Jews did not commit suicide in the Holocaust,” Lapid said. “The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse the Jews themselves of anti-Semitism.”
The Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel called the comments “irrational, delusional, dangerous and condemnable.”
“Lavrov is propagating the reversal of the Holocaust – turning the victims into criminals based on promoting a completely unfounded claim that Hitler was of Jewish descent,” she said in a statement.
“It is equally serious to call Ukrainians Nazis in general, and President (Volodymyr) Zelensky in particular. This, among other things, is a complete distortion of history and an insult to the victims of Nazism.”
Ukraine also condemned Lavrov’s statements.
“In trying to rewrite history, Moscow is simply looking for arguments to justify the mass killings of Ukrainians,” wrote an adviser to Ukrainian President Mikhail Podoliak on Twitter.
