In a caustic address to Knesset members on Sunday, during which he repeatedly invoked the Holocaust and criticized Israel for failing to arm his country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded for help defending against a Russian “final solution” for his people.
Beginning his speech via Zoom to Knesset members, Zelensky said Ukraine and Israel face the same threat from their respective enemies — “the total destruction of our people, our state, our culture, even the name: Ukraine, Israel.”
Zelensky, who is Jewish, noted that February 24 — the date Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine — was also the date on which the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, the Nazi party, was founded in Germany in 1920. “It destroyed entire states and tried to carry out genocide,” he said.
On February 24, 2022, he said, “102 years after the Nazis, the order was given to begin the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has already killed thousands of people and left millions without homes. They’ve become refugees… in dozens of countries.
“Our people are now wandering the world, searching for a place, just as you once wandered… seeking security, trying to stay alive, and in peace. Exactly what you have sought,” said Zelensky.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not a military operation as it’s presented in Moscow,” he added. “It is an all-out war, illegitimate, intended to destroy our people, our country, our cities, our culture and our children. Everything that makes Ukrainians Ukrainians.”
Zelensky then doubled down on the comparison with the Holocaust, which he has invoked repeatedly since the Russian invasion, at times drawing criticism from Jewish groups.
“The Russians use the terminology of the Nazi party, they want to destroy everything. The Nazis called this ‘the final solution to the Jewish question,’” he said. “And now… in Moscow… they’re using those words, ‘the final solution.’ But now it’s directed against us and the Ukrainian question.”
Zelensky noted a Russian missile attack that struck near the Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv — “You know that there’s a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust and a Jewish cemetery there” — and said missiles have targeted Uman, “where tens of thousands of Israelis come each year to visit the grave of Rabbi Nachman.”
“What will remain of Ukraine’s cities after this war?” he asked.
Source: The Times of Israel
