Ukraine war
Israel: Putin apologizes over Lavrov settlement
Vladimir Putin spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on the phone. Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP/dpa
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has caused outrage with his Nazi comparison. Now Vladimir Putin has personally intervened.
After a dispute over statements by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that were criticized as anti-Semitic, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin apologized, according to Israeli sources. This was announced by the office of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett after a phone call with Putin.
Bennett accepted the apology and “thank you for clarifying the President’s attitude towards the Jewish people and Holocaust remembrance.”
The Kremlin initially gave no confirmation of such an apology. There it was only said that the Russian President had emphasized his country’s friendly relations with Israel in the telephone call. The topic of the phone call was also the fighting in Ukraine. An apology from Putin is considered very unusual.
Lavrov had caused outrage in Israel and other countries in an interview on Italian television about the war in Ukraine, which aired on Sunday. Moscow justifies the attack on the neighboring country with an allegedly necessary “denazification”, although the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj is of Jewish descent. Lavrov said that Hitler also had “Jewish blood”. ‘That doesn’t mean anything. The wise Jewish people say that the most fervent anti-Semites are usually Jews.”
Israel has asked for an apology
Israel’s Foreign Minister Jair Lapid then demanded an apology. Lavrov advocated “a reversal of the Holocaust – by turning the victims into the criminals, by spreading a completely unfounded claim that Hitler was of Jewish descent.” In addition, the Israeli government invited the Russian ambassador to an interview.
The statement from Bennett’s office also said that the prime minister had sent a request to consider options for evacuating civilians from the Azovstal Steel Plant in the port city of Mariupol. “The request came after his conversation with Zelenskyj yesterday,” the message said.
Putin has promised to facilitate an evacuation using a humanitarian corridor run by the United Nations and the International Red Cross. This also applies to injured civilians.