Iran Press/ Europe: The Kremlin announced that Putin had a telephone conversation with Prime Minister of Israel Naftali Bennett.
The Prime Minister accepted President Putin’s apology for Lavrov’s remarks and thanked him for clarifying the President’s attitude towards the Jewish people, Bennett’s office said in a statement.
However, the Russian statement after the call made no mention of an apology. Instead, it said they emphasized the importance of marking the Nazi defeat in World War II, which Russia celebrates on Monday.
Bennett emerged as a potential mediator between Russia and Ukraine shortly after Moscow’s invasion. But that role was thrown into doubt this week when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made comments about the Holocaust that was deeply offensive to Jews.
Asked in an interview with an Italian news channel about Russian claims that it invaded Ukraine to “denazify” the country, Lavrov said Ukraine could still have Nazi elements even though its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish.
“In my opinion, Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn’t mean absolutely anything. For some time we have heard from the Jewish people that the biggest antisemites were Jewish,” he said, speaking to the station in Russian, and dubbed over by an Italian translation.
211
