Ukrainian MP says Zelensky will cite the Holocaust in Knesset speech

A Ukrainian lawmaker said on Wednesday that in an upcoming address to Knesset, President Volodymyr Zelensky will seek to invoke his Jewishness, as well as liken his country’s struggle to fight off Russia’s invasion to the Holocaust.

“I think Zelensky will say that he is also a Jew,” People’s Deputy Olga Vasilevskaya-Smaglyuk said in an interview with Kan public radio. “He will talk about the Holocaust and the situation of the Ukrainians now, because it is really similar — killing Ukrainians only because they are Ukrainian. We hope they understand us.”

The Ukrainian leader will address the Knesset via Zoom next week after an initial request to address lawmakers via video link was rebuffed, officially because the Knesset is in recess and renovations will be taking place in the building.

The address is slated to take place on Sunday at 6 p.m.

Amid ongoing negotiations to end the conflict, Vasilevskaya-Smaglyuk said she hopes Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet face to face.

She dismissed the possibility that such a meeting will take place in Belarus or Ukraine.

Asked whether the prospect of a peace summit in Jerusalem, which Israel has suggested, is still viable, Vasilevskaya-Smaglyuk said she hopes so.

She also called on Israel and Israelis to aid Ukraine further, saying that “Jews remember what happened in the Holocaust and they need to help.”

Both sides in the conflict have accused the other of Nazism, with Putin justifying his February 24 invasion by saying he wanted to “denazify” areas of Ukraine where he claimed there was a “genocide” being committed against Russian-speaking citizens. Western governments and Ukraine itself have dismissed the claims as a baseless justification for the invasion.

Earlier this month, the head of the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum Dani Dayan told The Times of Israel that Russia was trivializing the Holocaust with its claims about Nazism in Ukraine.

A Ukrainian request for permission to hold a large rally at Yad Vashem that would be addressed by Zelensky to discuss Russia’s invasion of his country was reportedly turned down by Dayan.

Thousands of Ukrainians have been killed in what is the biggest European conflict since World War II. According to the United Nations over 3 million people have fled the fighting to become refugees in other countries.