Israel has summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded an apology over remarks by the Kremlin foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, that Adolf Hitler “had Jewish blood” and that the “most rabid antisemites tend to be Jews”.
The remarks were part of Lavrov’s defence of Russia’s policy of “denazification” in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s term for a sweeping purge that Ukraine says is a pretext for “mass murder.”
In an interview with Italian TV, Lavrov was asked to address how Russia could say it needed to “denazify” the country when its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is Jewish.
“As to [Zelenskiy’s] argument of what kind of nazification can we have if I’m Jewish, if I remember correctly, and I may be wrong, Hitler also had Jewish blood,” Lavrov said during an interview with Italian television channel Mediaset. “It doesn’t mean anything at all.”
“We have for a long time listened to the wise Jewish people who say that the most rabid antisemites tend to be Jews,” Lavrov continued. “There is no family without a monster.”
The remarks have sparked a diplomatic row with Israel, one of the few western countries that has yet to impose sanctions on Russia over its invasion and has not provided military aid to Ukraine.
“His words are untrue and their intentions are wrong,” said the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett. “Using the Holocaust of the Jewish people as a political tool must cease immediately.”
Yair Lapid, Israel’s foreign minister, said Israel made “every effort” to have good relations with Russia “but there is a limit and this limit has been crossed this time. The government of Russia needs to apologise to us and the Jewish people.”
He said: “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.”
Israeli officials confirmed Russia’s ambassador, Anatoly Viktorov, had been summoned to the foreign ministry and Israel had “stated its position”.
In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said Lavrov’s comments showed that Moscow has forgotten, or never learned, the lessons of the second world war.
“No one has heard any denial or any justification from Moscow. All we have from there is silence … this means that the Russian leadership has forgotten all the lessons of world war two,” he said. “Or perhaps they have never learned those lessons.”
World leaders also condemned the remarks, which the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, described as “obscene” and Canada’s Justin Trudeau said were “ridiculous and unacceptable.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskiy, called Lavrov’s statement “antisemitic” and said that it was “further evidence that Russia is the legal successor of Nazi ideology”.
“Trying to rewrite history, Moscow is simply looking for arguments to justify the mass murders of Ukrainians,” he said.
Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, also condemned Lavrov’s remarks as “absurd, delusional, dangerous and deserving of condemnation”.
The organisation in March had also attacked Zelenskiy for comparing Russia’s intentions in Ukraine to the Holocaust.
Lavrov has addressed Zelenskiy’s religion in the past as Moscow has been pressed to explain how it can “denazify” a country with a Jewish leader. In March, shortly after Russia began its war in Ukraine, Lavrov told US broadcaster ABC News: “I think the Nazis and neo-Nazis manipulate [Zelenskiy].”
In his interview this week, Lavrov also said he did not want Ukraine to surrender but simply that it “stop resisting”.
“We don’t demand that [Zelenskiy] surrender,” Lavrov said. “We demand that he give the order to release all civilians and stop resisting. Our goal does not include regime change in Ukraine.”
Italy’s Mediaset TV channel also came under fire for giving space to Lavrov, with Enrico Letta, the leader of the centre-left Democratic party, describing the exclusive interview on the current affairs programme Zona bianca as “a propaganda advert”.
Laura Garavani, a senator with the small Italia Via party, said the interview, conducted by Giuseppe Brindisi, “was an offensive spectacle for a democracy like ours. The network acted as a sounding board for Russian propaganda by letting Lavrov speak undisturbed, denying the crimes he is committing without any cross-examination”.
Ruth Dureghello, the president of the Jewish Community of Rome, said Lavrov’s statements were “delusional and dangerous”, and that their most serious aspect was that they were made “on Italian television, without any cross-examination and without the presenter opposing the lies that were uttered”. “This is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to pass by in silence,” she added.