After a dispute over statements by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that were criticized as anti-Semitic, Russian President Vladimir Putin has apologized, according to Israeli sources.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett accepted the apology and "thank you for clarifying the President's attitude towards the Jewish people and Holocaust commemoration," his office said on Thursday after a phone call with Putin.
The Kremlin initially gave no confirmation of such an apology.
From Moscow it was only said that the Russian President had emphasized his country's friendly relations with Israel in the telephone call.
The topic of the phone call was also the fighting in Ukraine.
Lavrov caused outrage in Israel and other countries with an interview on Italian television about the war in Ukraine that aired on Sunday.
Moscow justifies the attack on the neighboring country with an allegedly necessary "denazification", although the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj is of Jewish descent.
Lavrov said that Hitler also had "Jewish blood".
"That means nothing at all.
The wise Jewish people say that the most fervent anti-Semites are usually Jews.”