Israeli Foreign Minister Jair Lapid on Sunday called Mr Lavrov’s remarks a “terrible historical mistake” and said he was calling on Russia’s ambassador to consult and apologize. Asked on Sunday by the Italian channel Rete 4 about Russian allegations that he invaded Ukraine to “desensitize” the country, Mr. Lavrov said that Ukraine could still have Nazi elements even if some personalities, including Zelensky , were Jews. “When they say, ‘What kind of Nazism is this if we are Jews?’ He added: “For a long time now we have been hearing the wise Jewish people say that the greatest anti-Semites are the Jews themselves.” Russian officials have repeatedly claimed that one of their goals in attacking Ukraine was to remove Nazi elements from its government. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the invasion of Ukraine is justified because the country’s leaders are nationalists and neo-Nazis who must stop committing genocide against Russians and Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine. He has not provided any information on the allegations. Mr Lavrov appeared to support a conspiracy theory that Hitler’s grandfather’s father was a Jew, first disseminated from 1953 memoirs by Hitler’s lawyer Hans Frank, who claimed to have found evidence of the alleged origin of the nazi leader. These claims have been refuted by leading historians. In the Soviet Union, and later in Russia, the terms “Nazi” and “fascist” have often been used to discredit all opponents, including opposition activists and foreign critics.
