Vladimir Putin issued a rare apology on behalf of Sergei Lavrov last year. (file)
Moscow:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday compared Western policies on Russia to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution” plan of genocide against the Jewish people.
Moscow’s top diplomat – whose comments on Hitler and Jews prompted President Vladimir Putin to issue a rare apology on his behalf last year – made the comparison at his annual press conference.
Lavrov said, “Just as Napoleon mobilized practically all of Europe against the Russian Empire, just as Hitler mobilized and captured most of the European countries and sent them against the Soviet Union, now the United States has A coalition has been organized.”
Western countries, he said, “are waging war against our country through Ukraine.”
“The task is the same: the final solution of the ‘Russian question’.” Hitler wanted to finally solve the Jewish question.”
It is not the first time Mr Lavrov has invoked Hitler and Jews in his outspoken anti-Western comments, with the 72-year-old facing anti-Semitism allegations in the past.
In May last year, President Putin apologized to Israel after Lavrov claimed Hitler had “Jewish blood”.
Mr Lavrov also said on Wednesday that Russia had not seen any “serious proposals” from the West to resolve the Ukraine dispute.
“We are ready to respond to any serious proposal,” he said. “But we haven’t seen any yet.”
He defended its targets in Ukraine in an 11-month invasion of the Kremlin.
“They are not created, not just taken out of thin air, but are goals dictated by the fundamental, legitimate security interests of the Russian Federation.”
Critics of the Kremlin have said its military objectives in Ukraine are unclear and have changed since Moscow failed to take Kyiv at the start of its offensive.
Russia sent troops to Ukraine in February last year.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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