The EU rejected on Thursday Sergei Lavrov’s assertion that the West’s approach to Russia over the Ukraine was similar to Adolf Hitler’s proposed “Final Solution” for the Jews of Europe
“Recent comments by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov accusing ‘The West’ of seeking a ‘final solution’ for Russia are entirely misplaced, disrespectful, and violate the memory of the six million Jews, and other victims, who were systematically murdered in the Holocaust,” said Josep Borrell, the EU’s head of foreign policy.
“This goes beyond Minister Lavrov’s earlier anti-Semitic sentiments.”
The manipulation of the truth by the Russian dictatorship to support its unlawful war of aggression against Ukraine, according to Borrell, has “hit another unacceptable and contemptible low point.”
Moscow’s top diplomat drew the analogy on Wednesday during his annual news conference after making remarks about Hitler and Jews in the past that prompted President Vladimir Putin to apologize on his behalf last year.
“The United States has established a coalition, just as Napoleon mobilized nearly all of Europe against the Russian Empire, same as Hitler recruited and conquered… the majority of European countries and dispatched them against the Soviet Union,” Lavrov stated.
He claimed that “by proxy, through Ukraine, Western countries are waging war against our country.”
“The “Russian question’s” ultimate resolution is the same work. Hitler also desired an end to the Jewish question.”
Insisting that there was “no analogy between the atrocities of Nazi Germany and the world assistance for Ukraine in defending its land and people against an unlawful assault,” Borrell argued that there was no comparison between the two.
“With the proclaimed objective of destroying the country and the Ukrainian population, Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring country, targets and kills civilians there on a daily basis,” he said.
“Denying, distorting, and trivializing the Holocaust is against EU law and EU principles. The EU made a clear commitment to prevent similar horrors from occurring again.”
Lavrov, 72, has previously faced accusations of anti-Semitism and has before evoked Hitler and the Jews in his outspoken anti-Western views.
Putin apologized to Israel in May of last year after Lavrov said that Hitler had “Jewish blood.”
