JERUSALEM: Russian President Vladimir Putin has apologized for remarks made by his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, who claimed Adolf Hitler may have “Jewish blood”, Israel said on Thursday.
Lavrov’s comments sparked outrage in Israel, which has sought to maintain ties with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
“The prime minister accepted President Putin’s apology for Lavrov’s remarks and thanked him for clarifying his attitude to the Jewish people and memory of the Holocaust,” Bennett’s office said in a statement.
The Kremlin summary of the Bennett-Putin call, which came 74 years after the creation of the Jewish state as Israel, made no mention of Putin’s apology.
However, it was noted that the leaders discussed the “historic memory” of the Holocaust.
In an interview with an Italian media outlet released on Sunday, Lavrov claimed that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky “puts forward an argument about what kind of Nazism he can commit if he himself is Jewish”.
Lavrov, according to a transcript posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry website, then added: “I could be wrong, but Hitler also had Jewish blood”.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid dubbed the comments “an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error”.
Bennett denounced the comments as “lies” that he effectively “accused the Jews of the most horrific crimes in history”, a crime against himself.
Russia’s ambassador to Israel was called upon to “clarify” the comments.
The Russian Foreign Ministry initially reiterated on the comments. In a statement on Tuesday, it called Lapid’s criticism “anti-historic” and accused Israel of supporting neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
On Thursday, following a call with Lapid, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dimtro Kuleba tweeted that “antisemitism among the Russian elite has a long track record,” and called on Lavrov to publicly apologize.
Israel has sought to walk a delicate line since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, with Bennett emphasizing Israel’s close ties with both Moscow and Kyiv.
Bennett has specifically sought to preserve Russian cooperation with Israel’s attacks in Syria, where Russian forces are on the ground.
Israel has so far rejected Ukraine’s requests for military aid, instead supplying bullet-proof vests and helmets for medical workers, as well as an Israeli field hospital.
Frugality has disappointed Kyiv. In a scathing address to the Israeli parliament in March, Zelensky called on Israel to increase its military aid and provide Ukraine with Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which he dubbed “the best in the world”.
Bennett has attempted to mediate in the conflict and was among a handful of world leaders who traveled to Moscow in early March to meet with Putin since the invasion.
Last month, Israel’s Ministry of Immigration and Absorption said more than 6,000 Russian Jews had immigrated to Israel since the invasion.