Russia doubles down on diplomat’s Hitler remarks

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs doubled down Tuesday after Minister Sergey Lavrov compared Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Adolf Hitler.

In a television appearance Monday, Lavrov characterized the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a mission to denazify the country, arguing that Zelensky was an antisemitic neo-Nazi despite his Jewish heritage.

“[Zelensky] puts forward an argument: what kind of Nazism can they have if he is a Jew. I may be wrong, but Hitler also had Jewish blood. It means absolutely nothing. The wise Jewish people say that the most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews,” Lavrov said.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a follow-up statement after backlash against Lavrov’s comments, insisting that Lavrov was correct about rampant antisemitism and “Russophobia” in Ukraine.

“For some reason, the Western press (and some of our liberals) are still arguing about whether there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine,” the statement read. “The Jewish origin of Volodymyr Zelensky is given as one of the ‘reinforced concrete’ arguments.The argument is not only untenable, but also crafty. History, unfortunately, knows tragic examples of cooperation between Jews and the Nazis.”

The statement also slammed Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, the son of a Holocaust survivor, who had previously called Lavrov’s comments “unforgivable and scandalous and a horrible historical error.”

“We paid attention to the anti-historical statements of Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, which largely explain the course of the current Israeli government to support the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv,” the Russian ministry wrote.

It concluded: “Everyday and political anti-Semitism and Nazism are not suppressed, on the contrary, they are nurtured. … Such ‘state building’ is especially immoral for a country that lost 1.5 million Jews during the Holocaust, and in whose capital there is a memorial to those who died in Babi Yar.”

The comments from the Russian ministry come amid allegations that the country’s forces have destroyed Holocaust memorials in Ukraine during their invasion.

Russian forces have also been accused of committing heinous war crimes including the killing of civilians, kidnapping, rape and torture. Russia, for its part, has denied the allegations.