DONETSK, Ukraine — Ukraine’s pro-Russian rebel chief on Monday branded the country’s leaders “miserable” Jews in an apparent anti-Semitic jibe.
Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, claimed that Kiev’s pro-Western leaders were “miserable representatives of the great Jewish people.
“I can’t remember a time when Cossacks were led by people who have never held a sword in their hands,” Zakharchenko told a press conference in the eastern rebel stronghold of Donetsk, in a reference to Ukraine’s nationalist forebears, the Cossacks.
Zakharchenko said that the country’s historical nationalists “would turn in their graves if they could see who is running Ukraine.”
Anti-Semitic sentiment remains widespread in Ukraine, where leaders are commonly labelled as Jewish by those seeking to discredit them.
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The comments by Zakharchenko, who was flanked by the leader of the neighboring rebel-held region of Lugansk, Igor Plotnitsky, were carried live by Russian news channel Rossiya-24.
The rebels leaders on Monday announced a mass call-up, aimed at bolstering their forces to 100,000 troops.
Fighting between Ukrainian forces and the pro-Russian rebels, which has claimed 5,100 lives since April, has surged in recent weeks after the collapse of a tenuous ceasefire deal.
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