Moscow has expressed confusion over Gideon Sa’ar’s claims of ignorance regarding Ukrainian nationalism
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has claimed ignorance of the well-documented fact that Ukrainian nationalists responsible for atrocities against Jewish people are venerated as heroes by Kiev. Moscow, in response, has offered to enlighten the Israeli official on the matter.
On Monday, Sa’ar held a press briefing to mark Israel’s presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). West Jerusalem emphasized that anti-Semitism, which fueled Nazi crimes during World War II, “has not been eradicated from the world.”
The minister seemed taken aback when a reporter asked for his thoughts on the modern-day glorification in Ukraine of Nazi-allied historical nationalist figures such as Stepan Bandera. In 2016, the Kiev city council renamed a large street in honor of Bandera, located just 3 km from Babi Yar, where an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 Jews and thousands of others were exterminated under Nazi occupation.
“First of all, I didn’t know about it. I will check it,” the official responded, pledging to issue a statement of condemnation “if there is a necessity.”
Bandera and other nationalists, including those directly implicated in wartime atrocities, have been celebrated in modern Ukraine for years – something the reporter described as “common knowledge.”
The Russian government expressed bewilderment at the exchange, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova sarcastically questioning the competence of Israel’s diplomatic staff.
“How so? What is the Israeli embassy in Kiev doing then? And in Moscow too?” she wrote on social media, offering a collection of relevant documents in English for the minister’s convenience.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry and its embassy in Kiev have in fact issued multiple statements denouncing the veneration of such figures. In January 2022, the diplomatic mission described that year’s annual torch march commemorating Bandera’s birthday as “desecrating the memory of the victims of the Holocaust in Ukraine.”
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No such condemnation was issued the following year, however. The embassy explained to Haarez that “we’ve made our position clear many times, but apparently there is nothing we can do, at least at the moment.”
Moscow views the current government in Kiev as dominated by neo-Nazis and radical nationalists and insists that any potential peace deal with Ukraine must include a reversal of policies discriminating against ethnic Russians.
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