A top Russian official compared Western support of Ukraine to Hitler’s extermination of six million Jewish people in the Holocaust.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov once again blamed the United States and Western allies for the conflict in Ukraine.
He said Americans want to be allowed to do whatever they want, wherever they want, but demand others ask for consent before responding to direct threats.
“Just as Napoleon mobilized practically all of Europe against the Russian Empire, just as Hitler mobilized and captured the majority of European countries and sent them against the Soviet Union, now the United States has organized a coalition of virtually all European countries, both NATO member states and others,” Lavrov said during a press briefing Wednesday.
He accused the West of using Ukraine to wage a “proxy war” against Russia, “just as Hitler wanted to find a solution to the ‘Jewish problem.'”
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) was also “appalled” by Lavrov’s comments.
“We are shocked and appalled by this shameful comparison drawn by Minister Lavrov between the actions of a coalition of democratic countries and Hitler’s persecution and murder of six million Jews in the Shoah,” EJC President Ariel Muzicant said in a statement.
“This is Holocaust distortion at its most basic level and we call on Mr. Lavrov to unequivocally apologize and withdraw these comments,” he added.
Muzicant said this is not the first time Lavrov has references Holocaust and Hitler.
“This must stop. As we mark in the coming days International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day that the Red Army liberated Auschwitz, the memory of Holocaust victims must never be used in such an appalling manner,” he said.
