Russia's antisemitism aimed at Ukraine's Zelenskyy is just the Kremlin variant of a very old European virus

Rosa Luxemburg, the Polish-born German revolutionary and co-founder of the German Communist Party, addressing a meeting in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1907. She was assassinated in January 1919. Universal History Archive/Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was asked in May 2022 how Russia could claim that Ukraine was run by Nazis, since Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish.

Lavrov’s response: “So what if Zelenskyy is Jewish? The fact does not negate the Nazi elements in Ukraine.” In fact, he claimed, Hitler himself had “Jewish blood,” and “the most ardent antisemites are usually Jews.”