‘Traitor to Jews’ – Lavrov attacks Zelensky as ‘pure Nazi’ amid Trump tensions

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, a “pure Nazi” and a “traitor to the Jewish people”.

Lavrov made the remarks, which are in line with Moscow's propaganda about Ukraine in recent years, during an interview published in Krasnaya Zvezda, the official publication of the Russian Ministry of Defence.

“Zelensky has turned 180 degrees from a man who came to power on slogans of peace, on slogans of ‘Leave us alone with the Russian language, it is our common language, our common culture’ (all this is on the internet) and in six months has turned into a pure Nazi and, as Russian President [Vladimir] Putin correctly said, into a traitor to the Jewish people,” Lavrov said.

The comments echoed those made by Putin in 2023 when called Zelensky a “disgrace to Jewish people”.

Moscow also described Ukrainian leaders as “neo-Nazis” in justification its invasion of the country in 2022. Invoking the Second World War to explain the “special military operation”, President Vladimir Putin has said that his offensive aimed to "de-nazify" Ukraine.

This has been widely repudiated by the international community, with Ukraine’s allies, including the UK, labelling the invasion as an aggressive land grab.

Jewish community groups have consistently condemned Russia’s use of terminology from the Second World War and Holocaust-related terms to refer to the conflict.

Israel has distanced itself from attempts to equate the war to the Shoah and the war from both sides, rejecting Zelenskyy’s juxtaposition of the Holocaust and the Russian invasion as well as the Kremlin’s frequent analogies.

A spokesperson for Israel’s foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment by JNS on Lavrov’s latest remark.

But it comes at a key moment in the war as early ceasefire negotiations were seemingly derailed thanks to an Oval Office shouting match between Zelensky and US President Trump in front of the world’s media.

Accusing Zelensky of being not “showing gratitude” for US support, Trump told him: “You don’t have the cards...you’ve allowed yourself to be put in a very bad position.” He also accused the Ukrainian leader of “gambling with World War Three”.

While European leaders doubled down on their support for Ukraine at a summit in London, and outline plans to get the White House back on board, the spat was indicative of a growing rift between Washington and Kyiv as the Trump administration appears more amenable to the Kremlin’s demands than many of its allies.

Bilateral talks held in Saudi Arabia last month raised fears among negotiators of a peace settlement on Russia’s terms being agreed without Ukrainian input, Reuters reported.

The row follows Lavrov’s insistence in 2022 that Zelensky’s Jewish heritage did not preclude him from having Nazi inclinations. In doing so, Russia’s chief diplomat cited a debunked conspiracy theory suggesting Adolf Hitler was Jewish.

“So when they say ‘How can Nazification exist if we’re 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,” Lavrov said.

Israel condemned his comments at the time, calling them “unforgivable”.