Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Russian foreign minister Lavrov again refers to ‘Nazi’ Ukraine at UN

Western diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, rebuked him at the Security Council meeting.

Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov delivers a speech at the Conference on Disarmament, March 14, 2022. Credit: U.N. Photo by Emmanuel Hungrecker.
Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov delivers a speech at the Conference on Disarmament, March 14, 2022. Credit: U.N. Photo by Emmanuel Hungrecker.

In a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, which Russia chairs this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov referred to “the Nazi Kyiv regime,” which he said does not represent “the residents of the territory who refused to accept the results of the brutal coup in February 2014.”

The claim has been “debunked countless times,” according to German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, which noted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and democratically elected.

Lavrov also accused Ukrainian leaders of having “introduced Nazi practice and theory without any concealment. Openly, they organized in the center of Kyiv and other cities exuberant torch-bearing marches with SS division banners upheld.”

There is no evidence of such claims, according to DW.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield was among those at the meeting who admonished Russia.

“Our hypocritical convener today, Russia, invaded its neighbor, Ukraine, and struck at the heart of the U.N. Charter,” she said. “This illegal, unprovoked and unnecessary war runs directly counter to our most shared principles—that a war of aggression and territorial conquest is never, ever acceptable.”

Eduardo Martinez “is a flagrant antisemite who used his platform to push hatred and misinformation against our community,” Tali Klima of the Bay Area Jewish Coalition-Action told JNS. “We are not sad to see him go.”
“We will not surrender to a cruel enemy and its collaborators, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis,” Israel’s consul general in New York said.
“This should not be welcome in the Democratic party,” the New Jersey senator said.
“The outrage only exposes how the press and those poisoned by anti-Israel propaganda will twist anything to blame the Jews,” Lizzy Savetsky told JNS.
Israel said that it “firmly rejects” the charges, which it said targeted the Jewish state “camouflaged as measures against violence.”
Pro-Israel groups sponsored 14 congressional trips to the Jewish state, accounting for more than a quarter of the $1.62 million spent on such travel through April.