Jewish anger after Russia bombed Babi Yar in Ukraine

Jewish organizations denounced the Russian strike near the site of the Nazi Babi Yar massacre in Kyiv, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky considered, Wednesday, a move by Moscow to "erase" Ukrainian history.

On Tuesday, Russian bombing targeted the Kyiv TV tower, adjacent to the site of the Babi Yar mass cemetery, which contains the remains of 34,000 Jews who were exterminated during two days, while the city was under Nazi occupation in 1941.

The memorial, located one kilometer from the TV tower, was not directly affected by the raids.

While expressing its "strong condemnation", Yad Vashem called on "the international community to take joint measures to protect the lives of civilians as well as historical sites because of their irreplaceable value in research, education and Holocaust remembrance."

"Instead of being exposed to blatant violence, sacred sites such as Babi Yar must be protected," the organization added in a statement on Tuesday.

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine to defend separatists in the east of the country and "disarm their pro-Western Nazi faction".

“Putin seeks to distort and use the Holocaust to justify an illegal invasion of a sovereign democratic state. It is absolutely repugnant,” said Natan Sharansky, head of the advisory board for the Babi Yar memorial for a former Soviet prisoner.

Ukrainian President Zelensky, himself a Jew, accused Moscow on Wednesday of seeking to "erase" Ukraine and its history, and called on Jews to "not be silent."

Last September, he visited Babi Yar in Kyiv on the 80th anniversary of the extermination of the Nazis.

He also revived it with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and German Frank-Walter Steinmeier in October.

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