Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy arrives for a meeting with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine April 30, 2022. Picture taken April 30, 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s suggestion that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins showed that Moscow has forgotten, or never learned, the lessons of World War Two.

“I have no words … No one has heard any denial or any justification from Moscow. All we have from there is silence…. this means that the Russian leadership has forgotten all the lessons of World War Two,” Zelensky, who is Jewish, said in his nightly video message.

“Or perhaps they have never learned those lessons.”

Earlier on Monday, Israeli officials roundly condemned Lavrov’s comments during an Italian TV news interview, in which he claimed that Hitler “had Jewish blood” and accused Jews of being among the worst antisemites. As part of a propaganda campaign to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has cast Ukrainian leaders, including Zelensky, as Nazi sympathizers.

Israel’s foreign ministry summoned Russian ambassador Anatoly Viktorov and demanded an apology for Lavrov’s remarks, which Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called “unforgivable and outrageous.”

“Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust,” Lapid said. “The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism.”