Vladimir Putin has once again touched upon the Jewish roots of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and accused him of covering up the "neo-Nazi regime."
This time he accused the "Western curators" of "appointing" Volodymyr Zelensky as the head of modern Ukraine to cover up the crimes of the neo-Nazis – descendants of the Ukrainians who allegedly exterminated one and a half million Ukrainian Jews during the Holocaust.
At the same time, the russian president referred to the alleged comments by "ordinary citizens of Israel" who discuss this on the Internet.
In this regard, we consider it necessary to state the following:
First of all.
Volodymyr Zelensky is a legitimate and democratically elected President by the majority of the Ukrainian citizens. It was the Ukrainian people who made this choice, and not the "Western curators", as Putin claims. Different to russia, Ukraine is a democratic state where presidents are not "appointed" for life.
The fact that an ethnic Jew is at the head of the state only gives the Jewish community of Ukraine an additional reason to be proud.
Second.
Ukrainian neo-Nazism is an absolute myth invented by the russian propaganda. The Ukrainian Jewish community has never in modern history developed and flourished as it did in independent Ukraine. The peak of this development was just at the beginning of 2022.
Third.
The citizens of Israel take a sincere pro-Ukrainian stance. Numerous opinion polls show consistently high support among Israelis for Ukraine at around 80%.
During russian shelling in Ukraine, Jews are also killed.
Many ethnic Jews from Ukraine and Israel are fighting in the ranks of the Ukrainian armed forces today.
Fourth.
During the Holocaust, it was the Nazis who initiated and carried out the "final solution to the Jewish question".
As for the Ukrainian collaborators, there were collaborators in all European countries during World War II. At the same time, the majority of collaborators in the Soviet Union had russian ethnicity. According to some data, up to 500,000 russians collaborated with the Wehrmacht.
One last thing.
Ukraine ranks fourth in the world in the number of Righteous Among the Nations – non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust. According to Yad Vashem, 2,691 Ukrainians have been awarded this honorary title. According to the Ukrainian researchers, the number of Righteous Ukrainians can exceed 10 thousand. They saved tens of thousands Jewish lives.
The Jewish Confederation of Ukraine categorically rejects all accusations made by Vladimir Putin against the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people. We consider this to be yet another attempt by the aggressor country to use neo-Nazi narratives to justify its invasion of Ukraine.
President of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine
Boris Lozhkin
Chief Rabbi of Kyiv and Ukraine
Yaakov Dov Bleich
Director of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine
Inna Ioffe