Just when you think that the Kremlin couldn’t lose any more of their marbles, Sergei Lavrov takes things to an entirely asinine new level.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this week made one of the most ludicrous suggestions that any international diplomat has ever made, all in a feeble attempt to justify his nation’s claims that Ukraine was being helmed by Nazis after global leaders scoffed at the idea.
Lavrov made the assertion on Italian television on Sunday when he was asked why Russia said it needed to “denazify” Ukraine if the country’s own president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was himself Jewish.
“When they say ‘What sort of nazification is this if we are Jews’, well I think that Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it means nothing,” Lavrov told Rete 4 channel, speaking through an Italian interpreter.
“For a long time now we’ve been hearing the wise Jewish people say that the biggest anti-Semites are the Jews themselves,” he added.
It didn’t take long for the world to grow angry.
Leaders from several Western nations denounced the foreign minister’s comments and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Russia of having forgotten the lessons of World War Two.
In a sign of sharply deteriorating relations with Moscow, the Israeli foreign ministry summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded an apology.
“Such lies are intended to accuse the Jews themselves of the most horrific crimes in history that were committed against them,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is himself Jewish, descended from Holocaust victims.
