Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says his Russian counterpart’s recent remarks about Adolf Hitler and Jews demonstrate “the deeply-rooted antisemitism of the Russian elites.”

In an interview with an Italian news channel, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed that Ukraine could still have Nazi elements even if some figures, including President Volodymry Zelenskyy, were Jewish. “Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn’t mean anything,” he said, according to an Italian translation.

“Lavrov couldn’t hide the deeply rooted antisemitism of the Russian elites,” Kuleba said in a tweet Monday. “His heinous remarks are offensive to President Zelenskyy, Ukraine, Israel, and the Jewish people. More broadly, they demonstrate that today’s Russia is full of hatred towards other nations.”

On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid excoriated Lavrov for his remarks, saying: “Foreign Minister Lavrov’s remarks are both an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error. Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem & AP)