Jewish Ukranian President-Elect Could Fill Region With Jews, Says Putin Aide
Volodymyr Zelensky Image by Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adviser published an opinion piece expressing that Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky could fill eastern Ukraine with Jews, The Moscow Times reported.
Sergei Glazyev’s blog post was posted to a nationalist website the same day that Zelensky met with top Ukrainian Orthodox Jewish rabbis, according to the Times. Zelensky is Jewish.
“I don’t rule out, for example, the possibility of a mass movement into southeast Ukrainian land ‘cleansed’ of the Russian population by the inhabitants of the Promised Land tired of permanent war in the Middle East,” Glazyev wrote on Monday.
Since 2014, the Russian government and media have called Ukraine’s liberal leadership “Nazis” trying to drown out Russian leaders, according to the Times.
Putin recently ordered residents of southeastern Ukraine to more quickly get Russian passports, which Glazyev said “could be quite timely” for Russian leaders in the areas seeing rising tensions.
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that the piece represented Glazyev’s “personal opinion” and will not comment further.
Volodymyr Zelensky, a Ukrainian actor known for playing the country’s leader, won the country’s presidential elections last month. Ukraine has become the first country whose president and prime minister are both Jewish, besides Israel. Zelensky will soon serve with Volodymyr Groysman, who has been prime minister since 2016.
Alyssa Fisher is a writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
