The European Jewish Congress has condemned the recent statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who drew comparisons between the US policies against Russia with Adolf Hitler’s actions against Jews.
“The US has now formed a coalition of almost all European NATO members, well not only them, EU members and is now waging a war against our country through Ukraine by proxy with the same goal: the final solution to the ‘Russian question’,” Lavrov said.
The European Jewish Congress is “shocked and appalled” by his “shameful comparison”, calling on the top Russian diplomat to apologise for his remark.
Congress President Ariel Muzicant noted that it is not the first time that Lavrov “has used Holocaust equivalence and Hitler references”, underlining that “this must stop”.
Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust remembrance centre also chastised Lavrov for his comments:
Lavrov’s comments, according to the museum, represent an “insensitive, delusional and dangerous misinterpretation of historical facts and must be condemned. Lavrov's equation of Hitler's murderous campaign to annihilate the Jewish people known as the 'Final Solution’ with current Ukrainian moves to counter the Russian invasion is an utter distortion of the history and an affront to the actual victims of Nazism”.
Last spring, Lavrov drew criticism for his comment that Adolf Hitler had “Jewish blood” and that “the most zealous anti-Semites are usually Jews”. The remarks were later particularly condemned by Lavrov’s Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid. At the same time, the Russian Defence Ministry noted that the Israeli government is pursuing the course of “supportting the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv”.
The Israeli prime minister’s office later said that Russian President Vladimir Putin apologised for Lavrov’s controversial comments. “The prime minister accepted President Putin’s apology for Lavrov’s remarks and thanked him for clarifying the president’s stance on the Jewish nation and remembrance of Holocaust,” the office of then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said.
