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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the Monday Russian airstrike that took out the Holocaust memorial site Babi Yar in the capital city of Kyiv in a news conference Tuesday, calling the destruction “beyond humanity.”
“This is beyond humanity,” Zelensky said, according to a translation from the Associated Press. “Such missile strike means that, for many Russians, our Kyiv is absolute foreign. They know nothing about our capital, about our history. They have orders to erase our history, our country and all of us.”
“Russian mothers are losing their children in an absolute foreign country for them,” he added. “Think about this number, almost 6,000 Russian soldiers were killed.”
“To get what? Get Ukraine? It is impossible,” Zelensky said, according to a translation from the Kyiv Independent. “This is not to be changed by missiles, bombs, tanks, any strikes. We are in our native land. And for the war against us there will be an International Tribunal for them.”
The Ukrainian president went on to speculate about what other targets Russia might attack, if it attacked a Holocaust memorial.
“What will be next if even Babi Yar (is hit), what other ‘military’ objects, ‘NATO bases’ are threatening Russia?” Zelenskyy asked, according to AP. “Sophie’s Cathedral, Lavra, Andrew’s Church? Whatever they dream about. Damn them.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has attempted to justify his attack on Ukraine as an effort to “denazify” the country, playing on the Russian public’s lingering hatred for the Nazi regime. Yet Zelenskyy is Jewish and had family members perish in the Holocaust. Russian officials have compared him to Jews who were forced to collaborate with Nazis.
Ukrainian officials have compared Russia’s bombing of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, to the Nazi assault on the city in 1941.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also compared Russia to Nazi Germany during attacks on Kyiv.
“Horrific Russian rocket strikes on Kyiv,” Kuleba tweeted. “Last time our capital experienced anything like this was in 1941 when it was attacked by Nazi Germany. Ukraine defeated that evil and will defeat this one. Stop Putin. Isolate Russia. [Sever] all ties. Kick Russia out of [everywhere].”
The strike that damaged Babi Yar also hit a TV tower and killed five civilians, according to Ukrainian authorities.
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