President Volodymyr Zelensky has called Russia’s attack on Ukraine “pure Nazism” in an emotive address to the Jewish community.

Speaking by Zoom to the US Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organisations on Monday, he urged the world to show the same empathy for Ukraine that it had shown for the US after the 9/11 attacks.

He said: “Despite the fact that I’m a Ukrainian citizen with Jewish blood, I was looking at what was happening with the American people and it was as painful to me. I thought if America is not protected, if terrorists can just kill people. 

“If the Twin Towers are falling down in the United States it can happen in Ukraine as well.”

Speaking to about 50 members of the conference, he said that Russian airstrikes that have killed civilians were “just pure Nazism”, describing them as “pure Nazi behaviour. I can’t even qualify this in any different manner.”

President Zelensky said: “All of this already happened in Europe.

“All of this happened during Nazi times when the German army rolled through Europe and everyone gave the Jewish people away.”  Also taking part in the call was Oksana Markarova, Ukrainian ambassador to the US. 

She was asked by Israel-based human rights expert Arsen Ostrovsky, Chair and CEO of the International Legal Forum, what faith Ukraine had in the international legal system, and whether justice would prevail.

The ambassador replied: “However long the war will be, all those from Putin, to those who pulled the trigger and financed them, will end up in jail.

“This will be a litmus test for the international order and rule of law. We will get justice.”

On Tuesday, President Zelensky made an unprecedented video address to both houses of Parliament in the UK.

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, he pledged that Ukrainians would defend their land “in the forests, in the fields, on the shores and on the streets.” He said that Ukrainians did not want to “lose what we have, just the same way as you once didn’t want to lose your country when Nazis started to fight."